The Collector

The Collector is a bit of a disappointment, but not an outright, across-the-board fail. From the makers of the crazy, black humor comedy In China They Eat Dogs I would have expected a picture in the same vein, or something completely different. In the end they stopped about half way. She’s a gambler, an incurable liar and an exceedingly boisterous person. He’s a debt collector who dreams of a better future and thanks to the trainer offer he is standing on the threshold of a second chance in life. This is a serious, almost intimate story about two people in awkward financial and life situations falling in love. On this level, the movie works rather well, primarily thanks to the wonderful Kim Bodnia. But then they start forcibly inserting short, randomly ordered scenes that look like they’ve come out of a previous Olsen twin project. The only difference is that here such scenes aren’t even very funny. As a whole, this doesn’t work at all and the rather unremarkable screenplay runs out of breath a long way before the finish line and so it limps to the end in stops and starts. Absolutely mediocre that, considering the topic, could have been much better if the creators had decided what kind of movie they wanted to make out of The Collector. (02/10/2007)