Before he fell into an endless string of projects designed to cash in on nostalgia for his glory days, Arnold Schwarzenegger made one last attempt to kickstart a new action franchise. His timing was terrible. The movie was Collateral Damage, and it was made before the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001 and was scheduled to be released after them.
The world had changed, and the film’s release date was pushed back months amid rumors of revisionist editing to make the film friendlier to the emerging new world order. After endless delays, the film was eventually released in 2002. It didn’t work.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Collateral Damage
Collateral Damage stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a rough ‘n’ tough fireman, whose family is murdered in a bombing by notorious Colombian terrorist “The Wolf.” Confronted with the inability and unwillingness of the U.S. government to seek justice, our fireman hero decides to take matters into his own hands and heads to Colombia to seek revenge.
Schwarzenegger’s action-hero fireman film could have been viewed as uniquely appropriate for the world’s post-9/11 environment. In the wake of the World Trade Center attack, firefighters were being put up on well-deserved pedestals.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Collateral Damage
At the same time, Collateral Damage was the product of a different era. The movie blatantly and painfully pointed out America’s pre-9/11 ignorance, a product of a more innocent time.
Current event context aside, Collateral Damage is built on a ridiculous premise inhabited by a poorly developed hero and incomplete villains. In this movie world, a lone, completely untrained fireman can easily accomplish what billions of dollars and hundreds of heavily armed military men and machines cannot.
Francesca Neri and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Collateral Damage
All Arnold Schwarzenegger-style action movies require a certain degree of faith and a suspension of disbelief, but Collateral Damage asks more than a simple leap of faith. Arnold expected us all to jump directly off a cliff along with him.
Assuming you can swallow the plot, you’ll still have trouble swallowing Arnold’s performance. Schwarzenegger’s grieving is virtually indistinguishable from his hell-bent-on-revenge mania. It’s so overwrought that it gets to the point where it’s unclear if you’re supposed to sympathize with this fireman character. He’s a man’s man with a plan, but he might be better off in some sort of institution.
The action scenes aren’t enough to gloss over the odd performance. Arnold never even picks up a gun. He spends more time fiddling with explosives and complicated triggers than he does beating up baddies in the name of justice. Would it have helped if he had kicked a little more ass? It couldn’t hurt.
The world had changed, and this film has not. Every moment of Collateral Damage is a reminder of a different time. It’s mildly satisfying to watch a hard-edged fireman take revenge, but in the wake of 9/11, this silly movie couldn’t convince anyone that the solution to terrorism is that simple.
Collateral Damage opened at number one in February of 2002, with a weak $15.1 million, and then saw a steep decline in subsequent weeks. The movie was a failure, and it sent Schwarzenegger into his current late-career spiral of greatest-hit retreads, canceled Netflix shows, and online fitness tips.
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