Collide Blu-ray Review
You always worry when a movie gets shelved for a while. That’s what happened with COLLIDE. The first studio that bought it went bankrupt. Then it was delayed several times by the second studio that acquired it. So a film that wrapped in 2014 was finally released in 2017. COLLIDE isn’t really worth the wait. It has some charm for being so silly and so implausible. But ultimately it is a middling film that fell through the cracks and tanked at the box office.
Nicholas Hoult plays Casey, an American whose specialty is stealing cars and he fled the United States to get away from the authorities. He works for a Turkish crime boss named Geran (Ben Kingsley hamming it up big time) in Germany. Geran though wants Casey to pull off a big job with his friend Matthias (Marwan Kenzari) where they rob an English drug lord named Hagen Kahl (Anthony Hopkins). Geran likes calling Casey Burt Reynolds because he probably had seen “Smokey and the Bandit” a few times and Casey’s specialty is cars. You get it. Hagen has this whole system where he transports cocaine every six months on a truck through golf balls and there’s sport cars involved with money. You see what I mean with the silliness of it all.
Meanwhile Casey had fallen for an American named Juliette (Felicity Jones before she did the Star Wars film). Juliette does not want to be with him if he was going to continue his life of crime. So Casey turns down the job and settles into domestic tranquility with Juliette. They move in with each other and Casey gets a blue collar job. Everything changes when Juliette collapses and her medical condition is revealed. She needs a new kidney and the German government will not provide that. It would cost around 200 grand to get it done in the US. And what do you know. The job that Geran offered previous would net him 250 grand. That is more than enough to get the surgery and have a little left over to start a new life.
Juliette does not want him to do the job no matter her fate. It’s too risky. Casey though does not heed her advice and goes ahead with this. In heist films, I always love the planning that is involved in these. In COLLIDE, there is little of that and it really takes away the fun of it all. Casey and Matthias decide to fake a car wreck in front of the truck. Then when the driver comes out, they will take him out and take the truck. This is easier said than done as they say.
COLLIDE proceeds to devolve into numerous car chases, foot chases, a couple of torture scenes and bad guys repeatedly missing the mark. Hopkins and Kingsley are a long ways away from their Oscar winning roles. Hopkins gets to talk tough and quote various pieces of literature. At least he gets to converse in his native tongue. That’s not the case with Kingsley. He goes all out with a ridiculous Turkish accent and his numerous quips. I do admit that I laughed later on in the film when he walks into a bar in a garish fur coat. You can’t say Kingsley doesn’t commit to a part. The actor who is really wasted here is Jones. She really doesn’t have much to do, but look sick or scolding of Hoult. It all adds up to a never boring action flick that ultimately wastes the enormous talent of its cast. The title of the film is appropriate since there is a lot of colliding that goes on.
BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: The country looks nice on the screen amongst all the carnage.
Audio: The sound was less than adequate. It was hard to hear the dialogue at times.
Previews