"Collide" serves as the title of the movie and the restaurant in which the story takes place. It's actually three separate stories bobbing and weaving throughout, none of which appear to be headed for a happy ending. Of the three, the tale of Zee (Dylan Flashner) and Lily (Aisha Dee) was the most pathetic, you knew they were destined for disaster right from the start. I like Jim Gaffigan as a stand-up comedian, so seeing him here goes completely against type as he contemplates suicide over a crumbling marriage. It's made even worse when a private investigator hands him a tape of his wife having an affair with Collide's manager, while he observes them in real time through the window of the restaurant. The third couple engages in a bizarre scenario in which Tamira (Kat Graham) and Hunter (Ryan Phillippe) meet on a blind date, and she grills him over the past transgressions of his racist father during South Africa's apartheid, during which he played an active part as a teenager. Though that's not as weird as the bomb she has placed under his chair, set on a timer to deactivate if he makes it through their conversation. All the while you wonder if the bomb is real or whether Hunter will try to call the woman's bluff, but the point becomes moot when Zee's older brother, fresh out of prison, arrives just as Zee's drug deal is about to go bust. The chaos that ensues captures all the players in one way or another with unexpected outcomes, except of course for the poor guy in the chair that fell over. But by that time, I'm pretty sure he was already gone.
Review of Collide
Collide
(II) (2022)
"We have to live with ourselves. Isn't that consequence enough?"
3 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers