Collide

A starry cast cannot save filmmaker Eran Creevy's Eurotrash action movie, which combines lots of empty hectic chases with a dollop of disease-of-the-week cliché. Nicholas Hoult and Felicity Jones play Casey and Juliette, Americans in Germany who fall in love. When she needs an expensive kidney transplant, he goes to work for a Turkish mob chief (Ben Kingsley) who plans to betray his erstwhile partner in crime—a widely-respected businessman (Anthony Hopkins)—by stealing a shipment of cocaine from one of his trucks. The heist goes awry, leading to high-octane mayhem, with Casey pursued on foot through narrow streets and on the Autobahn in a series of stolen cars by the businessman and his minions, all of whom are conspicuously poor shots. Meanwhile, Juliette is kidnapped to serve as a bargaining chip. Hoult meets the physical demands of his role and Jones is adequate, but both are eclipsed by Kingsley and Hopkins, who are like two gigantic slices of thespian ham, with Kingsley going the utterly wacky route while Hopkins snidely smiles while delivering overripe dialogue that mixes sneering insults with quotations from Shakespeare. Collide ends up being a would-be adrenaline rush that runs out of gas long before it's over. But it does offer a chance to see two great actors at their worst. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)