Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Collateral Damage
Warner Bros.


4.7

based on 34 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 14 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for violence and some language

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas, Francesca Neri, Cliff Curtis, John Leguizamo, and John Turturro

Family man and firefighter Gordon Brewer (Schwarzenegger) is plunged into the complex and dangerous world of international terrorism after he loses his wife and child in a bombing credited to Claudio "The Wolf" Perrini (Curtis). Frustrated with the official investigation and haunted by the thought that the man responsible for murdering his family might never be brought to justice, Brewer takes matters into his own hands and travels to Colombia to track down the terrorist. (Warner Bros.)

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	David Griffiths (also story) Peter Griffiths (also story) Ronald Roose (story)
DIRECTED BY:	Andrew Davis
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 30, 2002 Video: July 30, 2002 Theatrical: February 8, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	115 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

My guess is that the average firefighter, like the average American moviegoer, might sort of enjoy the movie, which is a skillfully made example of your typical Schwarzenegger action film.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Efficient action thriller.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

A pretty decent action picture.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Your heart will have you cheering Gordy on -- even as your brain complains that there are plot holes you could drive a truck bomb through.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Schwarzenegger's mortality for the first time suits him.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The best that can be said about Collateral Damage is that it offers a fleeting fantasy of American invincibility at a time when we desperately crave the reality. It functions as a movie narcotic.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Morally simple, action packed and explosive.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

It's throwback, formula Ah-nuld all the way, a straightforward and simple revenge thriller.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

I liked, too, some late plot reversals, sorely needed after the numbingly simple straight-ahead plunge of the first hour of the movie. Things aren't quite what they seem and the twists are neatly done.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's about as convincing as any other Arnie musclefest, but has a little too much resonance with real world events and ultimately comes off as insultingly simplistic.

USA Today Claudia Puig

What we get is simply another opportunity for Schwarzenegger -- who seems to be in perpetual Terminator mode -- to flex his muscles.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

In a way, Collateral Damage is redeemed by its implausibility, because the closer it comes to reality, the more disturbing it gets. For once, viewers have reason to be grateful for having their intelligence insulted.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The result is an ''action film'' mired in stasis. The ending piles on the potboiler mayhem, but it's telling that Schwarzenegger's climactic catchphrase is down to one measly word. This time, he's the luggage.

New Times (L.A.) Luke Y. Thompson

Feels dated in the post-9/11 world. But it would have felt passé and unnecessary regardless; it's the sort of film Michael Dudikoff, Chuck Norris and their ilk cranked out on a near-monthly basis when Reagan was president.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

He's still big and burly, but, at age 54, Schwarzenegger is starting to look a little too old to be involved in this kind of stuff. Action films are the province of younger stars.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Schwarzenegger doesn't at all seem too old for the part; his bulging muscles still fill the action-hero's suit just fine. It's what he's doing that is tired and, maybe, played out.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Utterly predictable, noisy and stupid.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

The film's political philosophy, as much as it has one, is of the "a plague on both your houses" variety, painting the rebels and the CIA as equally fixated on killing innocent civilians for their own nefarious ideological ends. We've seen it all before, and we'll likely see it all again.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A mind-numbing carnival of violence.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

This is one of those would-be blockbusters that wants to have it both ways: It includes enough political commentary to have pretensions of seriousness, yet it's engineered to satisfy the explosion cravings of Schwarzenegger action fans, if any are left.

Slate David Edelstein

It's another dumb vengeance picture -- "In the Bedroom" for meatheads.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Five months after Sept. 11, the movie inevitably echoes those events, but in a loud and extremely cheesy way.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Intermittently, in attempts to articulate a coherent argument, Collateral Damage shifts from pulse-pounding mode to something more migraine-conducive.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Head-scratchingly ordinary, given Schwarzenegger's need to prove he's still a virile (i.e., non-aging) action hero.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

A stinker.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

There's nothing special about this movie -- it's just business as usual for today's debased action-movie genre.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Exploits and trivializes public anxiety for entertainment and commercial gain. They've been doing it for years. But this little piggie didn't get to the market in time.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Collateral Damage isn't jingoistic; it also isn't exciting. It's a depressed rabble-rouser.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Manages to squeeze in several different endings — like a bad pop song that doesn't know when to fade out. But as Mr. Schwarzenegger's stature as an action figure diminishes, his effort to retain a piece of the market is touching.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Ludicrous revenge thriller.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Quickly plunges into boggy terrain from which it can never extricate itself.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Plays like a bad adolescent revenge fantasy on Ritalin, all jagged editorial edges and silly, pumped-up testosterone.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Abort! Abort! It's that time of year when Hollywood releases movies it should never have made in the first place.

Variety Todd McCarthy

More than an embarrassment, it's an insult.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.7 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Pat C. gave it a 3:
Travelogue, with Arnold as the conde nasty tourist. Move over Mel, Arnold wants to use the revenge-by-a-shell-of-a-family-man gimmick. If you're an Arnold fan, find it, view it, get it over with. To the rest of you, if God hadn't wanted you to see it eventually he would have smitten the hundreds of cable channels that every day have to fill thousands of hours of programming.

Gilbert Mulroneycakes' Video Cassete Recorder gave it a 0:
No. No. NO. Get the HELL out of here. Now. And here was I thinking that claims that certain films insulted the audience were exaggerated. Ha!

Arthur gave it a 6:
A movie that was better than I expected. The tedious beginning eventually leads to a pretty suspensful ending. Definately farfetched but fun to watch. There is pretty of action, but what would you expect from Arnold.

Jack D. gave it a 7:
Better-than-average Arnold flick.

Paul D. gave it a 3:
Unbelievable is too mild a word for this stinker.

Prêtre B. gave it a 5:
Simply written "Arnold-against-all-the-bad-guys-to-save-the-US" story. Despite the bad context of this moive, it still can be enjoyable.

Rick J. G. gave it a 1:
I wasn't expecting a Hollywood production to accurately reflect the current realities of Colombia ravaged by more than $1 billion in U.S. military aid to the country's brutal military and para-militaries. The movie also insults historical memory when the term "Collateral Damage" is introduced in the movie by a representative of a Colombia solidarity organization. An irony considering the term was brought into common usage during the Gulf War by the administration of President Bush, Sr., who Schwarzenegger campaigned for when he made his two presidential runs in '88 and '92. A dreadful movie. I wish I hadn't put myself through it.

Collateral Damage Warner Bros.

Collateral Damage
Warner Bros.