Collateral Damage (2002)

Collateral Damage is a 2002 American action thriller film directed by Andrew Davis and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas, Francesca Neri, Cliff Curtis, John Leguizamo, and John Turturro. The film was released in the United States on February 8, 2002 to negative reviews and was a commercial failure. The film tells the story of Los Angeles firefighter, Gordon Brewer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who seeks to avenge his son’s and wife’s deaths at the hands of a guerrilla commando, by traveling to Colombia and facing his family’s killers. The original script for the film had the same plotline but would have addressed American policy in the Middle East by taking place in Libya; director Davis and his screenwriters chose Colombia as the new location because it had not been used as extensively and touched on a current geopolitical conflict area.

Plot.

A bomb detonates in the plaza of the Colombian Consulate building in Los Angeles, killing nine people, including a caravan of Colombian officials and American intelligence agents. Among the civilians killed are the wife and son of an LAFD firefighter, Captain Gordon “Gordy” Brewer, who was injured in the explosion. A tape is sent to the U.S. State Department, in which a masked man calling himself “El Lobo” (The Wolf) claims responsibility, justifying it as retaliation for the oppression of Colombia by the United States. The FBI believes El Lobo is a Colombian terrorist named Claudio Perrini. CIA Special Agent Peter Brandt, the Colombia Station Chief, is harshly reprimanded for the incident by a Senate Oversight Committee, which promptly terminates all CIA operations in Colombia. Brandt angrily returns to Mompós and meets with his paramilitary allies to plan a major offensive to take down Claudio. Frustrated at the political red tape regarding the investigation, Brewer travels to Mompós to personally hunt down Claudio but is quickly arrested for illegal entry. The guerrillas stage a prison break to free their comrades and abduct Brewer to demand a large ransom for him.

Brandt’s unit is alerted to Brewer’s presence in Colombia but arrive too late. Brewer escapes the prison, evades capture, and secures a guerrilla zone pass from Canadian mechanic Sean Armstrong. Armstrong introduces him to drug runner Felix Ramirez, the manager of the cocaine distribution facility that finances the guerrillas. Masquerading as a “mechanic”, Brewer rigs several improvised explosives and destroys the facility. Felix is blamed for the destruction of the drug plant and is executed in front of a hiding Brewer’s eyes. Brewer infiltrates Claudio’s headquarters and plants a bomb to kill him, but he is captured when he tries to prevent a woman, Selena, from being caught in the blast radius along with her son, Mauro. At Claudio’s home compound, Selena reveals she is Claudio’s wife. She and Claudio once lost their own child during an American attack, which compelled Claudio to become a terrorist; Selena found and adopted Mauro, whose parents were killed in the attack. Regardless, Selena eventually sympathizes with Brewer and admits that Claudio is planning another bombing in Washington, D.C.

Filming, Marketing, Home media, Box office.

The film was shot in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. The scenes that represent Colombia were shot in the town of Coatepec in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Filming in Mexico lasted ten weeks. First were shot during first eight weeks and then returned to roll other two. The September 11, 2001 attacks affected the release and editing of the final film. The original trailer was scrapped because it showed a major bomb attack in the United States. The film was originally scheduled to be released on October 5, 2001, but it was postponed due to its terrorism theme and eventually released on February 8, 2002. The premiere was held four days earlier. Collateral Damage was also supposed to include Colombian actress Sofía Vergara in the role of an airplane hijacker; however the scene where Vergara would hijack a plane was cut from the film. Warner Home Video released the DVD in the United States on July 30, 2002. The film made $78 million worldwide against its $85 million budget.