The Collectors

Some unintentionally humorous dialogue and a pretty neat plot twist barely save this Canadian-American crime thriller from obscurity and an early grave. Staged in the Big Apple, the titular characters - contract killers Casper Van Dien and Rick Fox - stalk assorted "prey" for their Louisiana boss, all the while trying to elude the NYPD (led by Daniel Pilon) and a renegade cop (Catherine Oxenberg) from the Big Easy. Are Oxenberg and Van Dien romantically linked? Will Van Dien ever retire from his bloody business? Does anyone really care?

Director Sidney Furie tries to generate sympathy for his stone-faced players, but Van Dien ("Starship Troopers") and Oxenberg ("Lair of the White Worm") were never known for their sensitive performances. Some dreadfully ham-fisted screenwriting doesn't help either. If you want some real action leavened with humor, try "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead," "Pulp Fiction" or even "The Big Hit."

Ak and ray ( casper van mullet dien and rick fox) are small timers, in nyc. And seem to be up to no good. They are professional killers. They have a weird buddy buddy relationship. Van dien had just done starship and shark attack. Beaucoup de female nudity, which explains the R rating. Some pretty rough language. The music never matches the scene....another demerit. When the killers are threatening the guy who owes a ton of money, we hear upbeat circus music. Lots of saxophone. I don't think they spent much on the music budget. Co-stars the beautiful cathy oxenberg as detective bailey, trying to catch up with the killers. The dialogue is terrible; they should have done a script tune up. The two dudes are best friends, then yell at each other for no reason. Another demerit. Directed by sidney furie... no oscars. This one is pretty cheesy. Sometimes films are way under-rated on imdb, but this one deserves its low rating. Van dien currently has nine projects in development.

The current IMDb rating is rather poor. That's a shame. I just finished watching it on cable and found it enjoyable. It's not the top of my list, but the ending left me with mixed emotions: on the one hand, I got liking the characters enough that I had my own set of hopes for them, on the other I had my sense of "do something that's not a cliché." I won't say which won.

The film has a good sense of its own plot. I trace that to the one line where -- after a nearly implausible plot twist -- A.K. mutters "I should have bought a lottery ticket." (or something like that; I'm going by memory)

If you get a chance to catch the film, and don't mind a little tittie exposure (from the adult club scenes), it's no waste of time.

I had a boring Saturday night to watch this and "Sniper" and I think the IMDb scores for the films should have been swapped. I had trouble caring for the lead characters in "Sniper," but I found myself pulling for A.K. and Ray. I think the bad reviews came from trying to compare this to Tarantino films. If you don't, it works just fine.

The on-screen interactions between Casper Van Dien and Rick Fox (I) are natural and unrehearsed. Their characters literally flow through the dialog. I wonder if they are close friends off screen, for them to make this movie look so easy. Now, I don't know if real 'Collector's' work like they portrayed the parts, but I bet they wish they did. It would undoubtedly make their job much easier.

I started out just turning to the channel for some background entertainment while I worked on a computer project. Well, the computer project didn't even get started because I stayed focused on this movie throughout. I gave it a nine, because I like to see movies where the actors/actresses don't look like they're trying hard, but instead, look like they are enjoying making it.

The Collectors is an unassuming but interesting movie that has a little bit of everything-cops, killers, shootouts, buddies, comedy, and love (both requited and –un). The plot revolves around two semi-unsavory characters, Ray and A.K., who collect unpaid mob debts, and when they can't, heads may roll. But somehow we never really feel much menace from these guys, who are played for sympathy by Casper Van Dien and Rick Fox.

Van Dien's A.K. in particular, who at times projects an almost childlike likableness, would really like to get out of this risky business and be law-abiding, if he could afford to, but he won't leave his partner, who still feels loyalty to the boss who rescued him from the streets. And A.K. would really like to see his buddy settle down and marry his girlfriend Lyla, a beautiful hooker who is also caught in a no-win, no-way-out profession. Ray is a master of rationalization who neatly compartmentalizes his life, in fact occasionally seeing his job as being a way to improve the world by ridding it of scum. A.K. is just getting tired of it all, but he does make a moral distinction between killing a pimp who murdered a very young prostitute and killing debtors for late payment. Perhaps one last job, and taking one big chance involving deception and theft, will enable them to run, hide, and start over.

Will Ray and Lyla escape their sordid lives and find true love? Will A.K. ever get through to the beautiful cop (Catherine Oxenberg) who's been pursuing him so long, but who, he's convinced, is really attracted to him or she would have killed him by now? Is it love, bad luck or bad aim? We suspect but don't find out until the end of the movie, where we get a couple of surprises.

Van Dien fans will especially love the rooftop scene where A.K., watching Ray and Lyla share a tender moment, fantasizes about doing the same with Lt. Bailey. With hindsight, we know we're watching Van Dien and Oxenberg falling in love right before our eyes.

By some accounts, The Collectors contains ad libbed material that made the cut. Perhaps that's why the main characters seem so natural and likable-it's like watching Butch and Sundance do NYC, but we hope they'll meet a kinder fate. Rent it and see.