There are good Arnie movies and there are bad Arnie movies.  The good ones tend to be movies where Schwarzenegger doesn't have to talk much or try to exhibit the personality of a normal person.   In Collateral Damage, Arnie plays a fireman named Gordy.  As soon as I heard that name, I knew we were in for trouble.  Arnie can't play someone named Gordy.  He's at his best when his characters have names like T-800 (Terminator), Conan (the Barbarian), Quaid (Total Recall) or Dutch (Predator). And he's not too bad in a comedy (Twins, Kindergarten Cop).  But when he's playing a "real" person in a dramatic role, it can be painful.  Anyway, in Collateral Damage, Gordy is living a happy life with his wife and child until....you guessed it...they become collateral damage.  They are killed by a bomb set by a Colombian rebel/terrorist/drug lord nicknamed The Wolf.  Gordy wants revenge and when the collective efforts of the CIA (Elias Koteas) and the Pentagon can't seem to do anything, Gordy decides to find The Wolf himself.  His one advantage is that he knows what The Wolf looks like.  So, Gordy heads off to Columbia and with the help of some low-lifes (John Turturro, John Leguizamo), he gets into rebel territory, befriends The Wolf's wife and child and escapes with them back to the US.  Needless to say, this isn't the end of this totally unbelievable plot.  But I can't tell much more without giving away the plot twist at the end (which I figured out).  There isn't much good to say about this movie.  Besides the problems with Arnie's character, none of the screenwriters has written a screenplay before and it shows. The director, Andrew Davis, has made one very good film, The Fugitive but other than that, his oeuvre consists mainly of Chuck Norris (Code of Silence) and Steven Seagal (Above the Law, Under Siege) movies.  The supporting cast has several good people including Turturro (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge) and Koteas (Exotica) but they are pretty much wasted except Koteas who at least gets to chew the scenery as the stereotypical heartless, hyper-patriotic CIA operative.  Originally,  Collateral Damage was set for release in the fall but was delayed 4 months due to September 11.  It was made before Donald Rumsfeld made "collateral damage" into an everyday expression.  I think they should have left it on the shelf.