February 7–14, 2002

movie shorts

Collateral Damage

It’s a good thing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Gordon Brewer is a firefighter, because pretty much everywhere he goes there’s an axe that needs throwing and/or a gas line that needs exploding. Brewer witnesses the death of his loving wife and son at a restaurant in front of the Colombian consulate, the "collateral damage" of a guerrilla bomb targeting government officials. The politically hamstrung feds are unwilling to go after the rebels, so Brewer vows to sneak into the Colombian jungle and single-handedly hunt the Evil Doers down. Fortunately, the cocaine/Commie bad guys take his word that he’s a German mechanic (no ID needed, on account of the accent) and against all odds and plausibility he is able to infiltrate their camps and start blowing shit up. Along the way, Arnold saves the life of a Colombian woman with ties to the guerrillas (blue-eyed Italian Francesca Neri) and her son, cinemagically the same age as Brewer’s lost child. Despite a few half-hearted "we’re doing this for freedom" speeches by 800-pound-guerrilla El Lobo (Maori actor Cliff Curtis), director Andrew Davis’ film marks the unwelcome return of mindless Reagan-era jingo cinema; El Lobo’s compound is even decorated with posters of Lenin and Che. In these perilous times, all red-blooded American moviegoers need to speak with one voice: Arnold, you’ve put the "dumb" in "freedom."

—Ryan Godfrey

(AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bryn Mawr; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview; UA Sameric; UA 69th St.)