Yes of course, Arnold’s back! He’s always back, he never dies and guess what, in this flick he kills people. But don’t worry, they were all bad . or at least ill tempered.
So it goes, in his newly released movie Collateral Damage (Warner Bros.) Arnold Schwarzenegger plays yet another action hero, this time by the name of Gordy Brewer, an L.A firefighter and darn good family guy. While Brewer arranges to meet his wife and child at an outdoor cafe for lunch, trouble arises as his innocent family rendezvous coincides with the arrival of a Colombian terrorist bent on blowing up a passing CIA motorcade.
The terrorist, known by the ominous nickname of “El Lobo” (The Wolf), detonates an explosion killing his targets and Brewers’ family in the blink of an eye. As this happens Brewer is just crossing the street about to welcome his family when the detonation occurs, witnessing everything. In a flash, everything that Brewer loved is gone, his loss only to be disregarded as “collateral damage” by the Colombian Liberation front.
And so, like a monster reincarnation of Charles Bronson, Gordy Brewer snaps into action. Realizing the government’s lack of priority in bringing El Lobo to justice, he brings the war to him “Death Wish” (????) style.
The movie does have all the familiar characteristics of a normal Schwarzenegger flick but with one keen distinction – one that is ground-breaking in the realm of the Schwarzenegger film genre as a whole. The short and sweet of it – Arnold does not pick up one gun! Instead, his character seemingly takes on a Magiver-esque talent for rigging up nice little explosive contraptions that require nothing but rubber bands, light bulbs and, of course, a couple of grenades,
For those die-hard Schwarzenegger fans feeling as though such an Avant Garde move might reduce the Arnold action, worry not. While there’s no gun in his hand, there is a lovely scene with an axe . but I’ll leave that for the viewer’s own venturing.
The movie is nothing short of what should be expected from an action-hero flick with a little extra civil patriotism added for the public hoorah. But hey, so what, after all that Arnold’s done for us in the realm of his earlier works of bad-ass genius (i.e. Total Recall, The Running Man, Terminator, Twins etc.) perhaps the guy is entitled to a “few” bad “script” picks.
Regardless of it all, he’s back, and in all his immortal glory of bicep, accent and grit. Let’s face it, if Arnold could get away with Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin Returns, then the guy most definitely has some sort of Zeus-like karma the likes of 10 horrific action flicks couldn’t break. Arnold can doubtlessly take these risks. After all, he’s got nothing left to lose.
