Collide Reviews

Former carjacker Casey (Nicholas Hoult) has fled America and settled in Germany, where he works as a drug-slinging underling for a quirky Turkish dealer named Geran (Ben Kingsley). However, he decides to give up his criminal lifestyle when he meets Juliette (Felicity Jones), another American living abroad. The pair fall in love and begin a new chapter in their lives, but Juliette has hidden a serious medical condition from Casey. When her health takes a turn for the worse, he goes back to Geran, looking for a big score to fund an expensive procedure to save his lover’s life. Geran wants a bigger cut of the profits from his own boss, a businessman running an international drug ring (Anthony Hopkins), and enlists Casey to heist a shipment of cash and coke. When the operation goes awry, he finds himself on the run from an army of goons while racing to reach Juliette before the baddies do. This long-delayed release has toiled in purgatory for quite a while, and with such a cookie-cutter story, it isn’t hard to imagine why. Collide is a messy marriage of schmaltzy romance and criminal-underworld mumbo jumbo, with a hefty dose of car chases thrown in. Kingsley, the techno-obsessed Turk, and Hopkins, the maniacal drug lord, are given free rein to ham it up (which shockingly works for director Eran Creevy, more often than not). Meanwhile, Hoult and Jones are agreeable enough as the young lovers to not lull viewers asleep; it’s a bit strange that they’re both Brits cast here as Americans, but at least their accents are mostly consistent. Unfortunately, Collide’s conventional buildup, extended-chase middle, and predictable conclusion are tiresome. This is the sort of movie you might stumble upon on Netflix and be shocked at its existence and stacked cast. This flashy foreign production has some commendable action set pieces, but its clunky plotting relegates it to run-of-the-mill VOD fodder.