Honestly, at age 54 it's time for Arnie to give up the action-man posturing. Here's yet another film in which he saves the world after taking matters into his own hands. Gordon (Schwarzenegger) is a dedicated and heroic L.A. fireman whose wife and son are killed in a terrorist bomb aimed at Colombian officials. When the FBI (Sandoval) and CIA (Koteas) prove ineffective, Gordon launches his own vigilante crusade, burrowing into Colombia's guerrilla community, finding the evil El Lobo (Curtis), then heading to Washington with El Lobo's wife (Neri) to stop another atrocity.

There are so many problems with this story that it's impossible to outline them all. Basically it isn't credible on any level. There is one terrific twist at the end that just about redeems the lazy plot, but by then we've been subjected to so many preposterous set pieces that we've stopped caring. And there are even more laughably inane scenes to come! But this isn't a comedy, so Arnie overacts seriously; even surrounding him with quality actors like Koteas, Neri, Turturro and Leguizamo can't make him remotely believable. That said, this is the kind of slick Hollywood nonsense that is still entertaining despite its multitude of sins. It's so silly that there's no suspense at all, even in the most violent, mayhem-ridden scenes. But in a dumbed-down movie kind of way, the film does manage to show the chaos of the war on drug terrorism.

themes, language, violence

26.Mar.02