Feature | Lights, Camera, Action! – Collection (DVD Movie Review)

Collection (UK Rating: 15)

The story, such as it is, surrounds a self-help book entitled Reach Me. It's taken off, is all over the media and a massive question surrounds its mysterious author, Terry Raymond (Tom Berenger). He doesn't give interviews, doesn't make public appearances, and generally shies away from the rest of the world, including the devotees of his book, one that that touches a loosely connected group of people, all looking for something more meaningful in their lives - from the journalist assigned to track down the reclusive author, to a cop who's killed 43 men and can't quit the job, and an ex-con turned aspiring dress designer and her wannabe actress niece.

In structure then, it nods in the direction of Paul Haggis' surprise Oscar winner Crash (2004), although the tone is very different. It shows signs of wanting to mix drama and comedy, but there's not enough of either for it to hang together. If anything, it should have been a satire of the self-help industry: when the most quoted line reaches the depths of "you can't stop a person who'll stop at nothing," it cries out to be pilloried. Director John Herzfeld, though, also wrote the script and clearly didn't have that in mind. The ingredients are all there, but the opportunity is lost, and he only has himself to blame.

Of course, it all ends happily with the characters' dreams coming true. So schmaltzy is the final sequence that, for a moment, the audience can imagine the film finding a home on the Hallmark Channel. Its 15 certificate, however, makes that a no-no, as does a decidedly vicious dachshund that bites off somebody's nose.

3/10

Bad

Lurking somewhere inside Collection there's a nugget of an interesting idea, but it's buried underneath a yawn-inducing story full of risible platitudes and under-developed characters. It's a film that can't make up its mind what it wants to be, let alone what it wants to be called, and the audience most certainly hasn't been reached.