This movie was okay,not the worst,not the best.First,the good,the story,well it is generic,it is well executed and it has a few good twists and turns.The pacing,the movie went by fast,but not too fast.The villains,they weren't amazing,but they were well written,they were intimidating and brutal,but you could understand were they were coming from,which was unexpected from an Arnold Schwarznegger movie.The climax,well not the best,was exciting and suspenseful.The best part though,was Arnold himself,well he does have to act through some bad dialogue,he was entertaining,and in a great twist,Arnold isn't an invincible badass,he gets hurt and fails to save people.Now,the bad,as I said,some of the dialogue is really stupid and cheesy.Even though this movie is kind of serious,there are some dumb moments that feel very out of place and take away from scenes that should be serious.The action,it runs a bit too short,and feels very repetitive,there's some shooting,and then too many explosions,excluding the climax.In the end,Collateral Damage has good villains and some good twists,but suffers from weak action,and bad scripting.

A deeply average but nonetheless watchable movie for Schwarzenegger, one which is for a change rooted in realism (yet no less unrealistic in places) than his last two movies, the supernatural END OF DAYS and the sci-fi offering THE SIXTH DAY. Here Arnie is given a strong role as the grieving widower you wouldn't want to mess with, and it's nice to see he's still more than capable as a charismatic lead and as a hero in the action stakes. Sadly I was expecting more, especially with Andrew Davis, the director who bought us THE FUGITIVE and UNDER SIEGE, but COLLATERAL DAMAGE is a relatively dark and unexciting film which goes through the paces, working hard to build up some bizarre characters (John Turturro and John Leguizamo cameo) and maintain a realistic sweaty atmosphere when the action shifts to Colombia.Things only really start to gel for the finale, in which the action shifts back to Washington and there's a great race against time as Arnie tries to stop the bad guys before they blow up another building and waste more innocent lives. This is the Arnie we know and love, with pumping adrenaline action and some cool stuntwork and explosions. Otherwise the plot offers just one good surprise twist and some above average acting (Elias Koteas sails through his role as shifty CIA Agent Brandt) from the above average cast, but the story doesn't say anything new and there aren't enough fights, chases or shoot-outs (Arnie doesn't even get a gun this time!) to justify a satisfying experience for this action fan. The political message itself is just a backbone on which to base the shallow plot and the end result is that you're left wanting a bit more from the veteran performer.

This movie doesn't show anything right about Colombia, we're not drug addicts or bad people, as every country in the hole planet we have problems but is not that bad, is really ridiculous the way the show how we are, is just stupid that they thing that we are like that, I invite everyone to come here and see how nice we are. Not every person is bad here, just ask any person who has come and they will tell that is not as bad as it shows, we are good people, trust me, the movie just shows the bad part about and Colombia, like is normal all of what the movie shows, is wrong the idea that the others have about my country, is really really wrong.

For me this is a mixed package. On the other hand, I love Arnold Schwarzenegger. The man is the epitome of an action hero star with his questionable acting performances, stone-faced expressions and honest to god skills to pull of action scenes and make them believable. On the other hand, the script is terrible, the rest of the actors are wooden, the plot has holes the size of moon craters and in the end it's just not that interesting to follow.It has its moments, though. For one, Arnold plays a firefighter in this film, and it has been taken into account with the action scenes. There's less shooting ridiculously over-sized guns from the hip and more trap building and ingenuity, which I think is a welcome change to the Schwarzenegger formula. You still get the explosions and the kill count, but this time things blow up because Arnold went and built a bomb.The character of Selina (Francesca Neri) is also somewhat interesting to follow. She has layers to her and throughout the movie you end up questioning her motives and actions, which creates believable suspension. Not the best character I've ever seen, but serviceable, especially given the rest of the cast.But yeah, it's a stupid film. Does it have some perks? Yeah, it does, but they're not enough to outweigh the idiotic premise of a firefighter fighting international terrorists just to save his family. They're not enough to outweigh the poor acting or the lackluster dialogues. Still, it's an Arnold Schwarzenegger film. I cannot hate it that much, and if you're a fan of the man, you'll probably enjoy this film at least on some level.