Collateral Damage (2002)

My Review

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Los Angeles firefighter who takes the law into his own hands when his wife and son are killed in a Columbian terrorist bombing in “Collateral Damage.” Frustrated by government inaction, he travels to Columbia to hunt down the terrorist leader who caused the whole thing. Director Andrew Davis (“A Perfect Murder” 1998) and screenwriters David Griffiths and Ronald Roose put together a surprisingly ordinary and formulaic action-adventure film which relies heavily on Arnold’s never-ending Terminator persona.

The cast includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cliff Curtis, Francesca Neri, Elias Koteas, John Leguizamo, John Turturro, Jane Lynch, Harry Lennix, Miguel Sandoval, and Rick Worthy. The barely watchable “Collateral Damage” was a box office bomb for Bel-Air Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures. It was filmed in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D. C., and Mexico. Any success of this film was undoubtedly undermined by being release in February, 2002, a mere five months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.