ARNIE the Amazonian Austrian, the redneck people's President of the USA, is past his action sell-by date, just like Roger Moore's James Bond before him.

The problem is not the action but the reaction time, and when that goes, you are as gone as a burnt-out sprinter or a busted, bloated heavyweight.

The release of Collateral Damage, with its sensitive story of a terrorist attack on Los Angeles, had been delayed by distributors in the light of September 11. How convenient. Cancellation full stop would have been more appropriate for exactly the kind of self-righteous, America-glorifying movie with the computer-game mentality that so annoyed the non-Western thinking world in the first place.

Looking increasingly muscle bound, and reminiscent of a discarded dumper truck tyre with the tread worn out, Arnie is LA fireman Gordy Brewer, whose wife and child are blown up in front of him, victims of a bomb planted by Colombian liberation leader El Lobo (Cliff Curtis).

His brooding grief meets an inappropriately tardy response from the authorities, so our heroic firefighter ventures into the deepest Colombian jungle, solo commando style, to seek revenge on the loco Lobo, as only Arnie can do, or rather once could do.

There is a brief attempt at sensitivity (Arnie saving a young mother and child) and El Lobo is allowed to make a comment on America's blinkered attitude to the rest of the world's troubles, but a rank, witless script bogs down both Arnie and director Andrew Davis, who cranked up the tension much more adeptly in The Fugitive.

Cameos by John Leguizamo and John Turturro are among the early fallers, and clichs and stereotypes then tumble over each other like so many Grand National horses at Becher's Brook.

More than ever, Arnie needs Terminator 3 to be his saving grace. Otherwise, it will be termination and no more action at 55.

Updated: 09:26 Friday, April 05, 2002