Collateral Damage: Review By B. Alan Orange

Code Orange Alert #38392; Collateral Damage

The Eagles are a sh*tty band, and this movie is for hookers. That ringing endorsement has been brought to you by ten angry digits. Yes, Alien Hand Syndrome has compelled us to be here. We'll let you in on a little secret: After evoking the spirit of Billy Mays, The Orange tried expelling these come-ons in the face of Macy Gray while sneaking into her sound check at a secret show: "I've got the tool for opening that stubborn jar. My junk's powerful enough to bust a rusty spigot. I've got all the muscle without the tussle. Just grip, grab, and go. I'm telling you, my junk's perfect under the sink."

He got punched in the head by a rather large black man holding a mic stand. B. did manage to hobble over to Mann's Chinese for this petrified ass leakage disguised as a Schwarzenegger flick, though. He passed out seven minutes in, leaving us welded to the seat in a cold grip of terror. Do you know how hard it is to crawl home on two worn-out palms after suffering the plight of Arnold's current career choice? Last Wednesday was a day of choirs that won't soon be forgotten.

People are in an uproar. They've called Collateral Damage insensitive. We disagree. It's rather cartoonish and too stupid to be taken seriously. The movie's not a bit different than anything that's come before it. It does, however, contain the most horrifying scene we've seen in a long time. That poor little child actor; he must still be having nightmares. We are. Ten minutes into this thriller of Van Damn straight-to-video craftsmanship, we're held witness to the horrendous sight of a naked Arnold in the shower with his 6 year old son, getting his head lathered and shampooed. It's the goofy, oafish grin on his melting face that has stiffened our joints into a motionless slab of flesh. There's only one reason for this squirmy scene, and the movie painfully blows its chance at cinematic greatness.

You most likely know the plot by now. This is nothing more than Commando tweaked a bit at the edges. Arnold's a firefighter who loses his wife and kid to a terrorist bombing. He jumps the country and heads into Columbia to hunt down El Lobo, the man responsible for the heinous deed (We hear that bombed cafe served an excellent Raspberry Mocha blend). After a couple of mediocre fistfights, Schwarzenegger kills both the killer and his above-average coffee-drinking whor* of a wife. This, of course, leaves their son an orphan. For all intents and purposes, it looks like Arnold's going to petition for custody of the kid. The movie ends with them hugging outside a DC office building, walking away hand-in-hand. Ah, how cute. If, instead of cutting to black, they'd of cut to Arnold in the shower getting his scalp massaged by this replacement child, we would have laughed in twitches for a decade, hailing Collateral Damage the best movie of the 02s. Sadly, the director has no sense of humor or style.

This is a disappointment. Andrew Davis directed the Fugitive. We expected more from the man. There are a number of missed opportunities swimming in this mess. After Schwarzenegger's wife and child are blown to smithereens, a rather creepy Elias Koteas pats the guy on the shoulder and insincerely says to Arnold, "If there's anything we can do, just let me know." In passable trash, the proper response would have been, "Gee, I could really use a big screen TV."

In a similar situation, near the tail end, Arnold kills El Lobo's wife via electrocution. It's a less humane way of murder than an instantaneous bomb blast that no one saw coming, sure. Arnold and Lobo lay on the ground, bleeding and beaten. They look at each other for a moment. Nothing is said. I wanted to hear Arnold jive, "Now that we've gotten rid of the ball and chain, what do you say we go get a beer and see some naked girls?"

There are no one liners spit forth anywhere in the running length of this sludge. That's too bad. Those one liners are fun; they're the only thing that makes a movie like this run in a less painful sprint. In the past, Davis displayed a very unique, stylistic approach. Damage is absent anything new or interesting to look at. You have to wonder if the only thing that made The Fugitive work was its talented cast. This movie is disturbingly similar to Schwarzenegger's God-awful End of Days in tone and approach. The Sixth Day was watchable, but this is rotgut. It's no better than the Billy Drago videos that are pumped into Blockbuster on a daily basis. We're ashamed to look at it, not to mention a little embarrassed. You'd think after all those years of sacrifice, Arnold would know how too choose a better script. Well, at least we can be thankful that he's not doing comedies at the moment. Hopefully he'll achieve a much-needed career 360 with his back to back Terminator 3/True Lies 2 double header later next year. Collateral Damage is down generation chariot choogle at best.

It seemed that Davis once knew what he was doing in terms of casting. The pairing of Harrison and Jones in the Fugitive peeked at the tip of the bell curve, and has since gone unmatched. Tommy Lee Jones and Big Willie Style? Please, don't be offensive. It's a bit odd that he's hit this minorwork with an aluminum bat, thus whacking it out of position. Koteas has been overlooked and misused since his star turn as Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (There rests an inspired adaptation choice that mirrors Steve Buscemi's work in Ghost World.) Collateral Damage's Casting Director obviously saw potential for the man to stand above this "Is he evil-Is he good" FBI role.

Unfortunately, Davis fails to use Elias in a context that's worth sitting still for. Then there's John Turturro; what the f*ck is his talented ass doing here? He pops up out of the blue, throws the movie into first gear, changes the outlook of the picture, then disappears exactly eight minutes later, never to be seen again. That bastard, "Enjoying the new pool, you Turturro sh*t-f*ck.?" Thanks for destroying expectations at the midway point.

The only thing done right in the whole picture is John Leguizamo. Much like The Orange, we loathe this man's screen presence with a vengeance. Davis, as Prophet, knows what we want: We want to see this dishrag jackass dead. Thank you, we get our wish. Bam-Bam! It's two shots to the chest and his open-eyed body goes rolling under a car. Ha, what a hoot. Count this as the only nugget of joy to present itself.

The fireman angle seems to be thrown in just so Arnold can use an ax at the end of the movie. There's no other cross-pollination with the character of Gordy and his career as public servant. At the beginning we see him battling a fire and falling through a floor, but the theme doesn't cater to the entirety of its plot. After all, the prologue is just a dream. Now, more than a year after its production date, it seems like nothing more than an odd coincidence. The action here is sporadically simplistic and inconsequential. Frames flick by, meandering in spurts, and then some quick cuts will interweave themselves into unexciting joints flapping at the hinge. It's all pretty much a flashing man in jaunt at the crosswalk of bad exploitation cinema. Collateral Damage could have resolved itself in twenty minutes. Like Jet Li's The One, here's another faulty piece that's obviously going to go in circles without much meat clinging to the bone. Both films would probably make kick ass shorts. We'd pay an extra dollar at the box office to see that before the start of something worthwhile.

Wouldn't you?

There is a winning fight thrown in the mix, somewhere near the middle. Arnold bites a guy's ear off and spits it across the floor. And El Lobo's wife is a hottie, even if she does plan on blowing up a Washington Landmark. We'd give her a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card any day of the week. Do we win some kind of prize for knowing the bomb was in the dinosaur? Too obvious? Well, we tried. So, there you have it. Alien Hand Syndrome's thoughts on the newest led ball in that Shwarzenegger cannon. Truthfully, this is the worst film of the 02s (at this moment. The year's still young and God only knows what horrors await in the coming months). Even the dismal Slackers is a better bet than this cheeky clunker. Take it from us, we wipe ass for a living.

Until the next time we have possession of the moronic, idiosyncratic Orange, a man of less intelligence than his own fingers...Adios, Amigos!