Nicolas Hoult and Felicity Jones Team up With Kingsley and Hopkins for Gonzo Action Flick ‘Collide’

Aryeh Harris-Shapiro

Every year, we get a few February releases that exceed expectations. The month is often known as a dumping ground, but people still want to see movies no matter what time of year it is. A solid genre offering in February can clean up due to lack of competition, as evidenced by films as recent as last year’s “Deadpool.” “Collide,” a German-American action flick helmed by director Eran Creevy, will attempt to stand out from the pack this weekend, but unusually strong competition and a mishandled release may have already doomed its success.

“Collide” stars young British actor Nicolas Hoult as Casey Stein, a drug smuggler turned backpacker who returns to his life of crime in order to afford a kidney transplant for his girlfriend Juliette, played by Felicity Jones of “Rogue One.” Casey’s last big heist goes wrong of course, and his failure positions him between his former mentor Geran, played by Ben Kingsley, and Anthony Hopkins as Hagen, the vicious gangster that he tried to steal from. That’s a talented, interesting core cast even if Hoult and Jones are inexplicably saddled with American accents. If the trailers are to be believed, Jones is saddled with the “damsel in distress” role for most of the film’s runtime. Kingsley and Hopkins appear to be having great fun with a cheesy script, although you shouldn’t expect anything but high-level scenery chewing from them in a film like this.

Overall, “Collide” is an attractive package with many creative voices working behind the camera. Writer-director Eran Creevy’s 2013 U.S. debut,“Welcome to the Punch” was overlooked at the box office but well-received, earning praise for both its strong character work and practical action sequences. “Collide,” co-written with “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” screenwriter F. Scott Frazier, appears to have dipped its toes into more generic CGI-fueled blockbuster carnage. With any luck, the core appeal of Creevy’s earlier work remains intact. However the film performs at the theater, its release must be a relief for Creevy, who saw his film cast off during the Relativity Media bankruptcy and delayed repeatedly over the last year and a half. The film’s staggered release has undoubtedly damaged its word-of-mouth, lack of advance reviews. “John Wick: Chapter 2” is currently dominating the pulp action niche that “Collide” wants so desperately to fill. Still, stranger things have happened, and, if Creevy and his cast deliver, “Collide” could be an unexpectedly fun popcorn flick for this dreary time of year.

“Collide” opens nationwide Feb. 24.