‘Collision Course’ Review: A Car Crash That Splits One Heist Into Four Possible Endings

‘Collision Course’ lands on Netflix as Daniel Sánchez Arévalo’s first thriller, a big swerve for a director long associated with bittersweet comedy. The Spanish film, known at home as ‘Colisión’, opens with four masked robbers walking into a Madrid bank. They want the diamonds locked inside safety deposit box 34.

The story is set during the financial crisis of 2012 and 2013, so the desperation feels baked in from the first scene. Luis Zahera plays the bank manager caught in the middle, while Laia Costa, Tamar Novas, Álvaro Cervantes and Karra Elejalde make up the crew. Then the getaway car crashes, and the film stops being a simple robbery story.

This is the moment the movie won me over, because it splits into four chapters, one for each robber. Each chapter imagines what would have followed if that person had died in the wreck. It is a daring bit of architecture, and it turns the film into a guessing game where every version of events changes what you believe about the others.

The twist underneath is that the thieves are also police officers, which gives the investigation scenes a nervy, slippery charge. Lluís Homar appears as the police chief, and the editing from Miguel Sanz Esteso keeps cutting between the people hunting the truth and the people hiding it. I will admit I was a little lost during the first stretch, but the film rewards patience more than it punishes it.

The casting is a real asset. Costa and Novas play an unhappy married couple who see the loot as their only exit, while Elejalde and Cervantes play a bankrupt father and his son. These are seasoned faces, and they make the money troubles feel lived in, even when the script gives them very little backstory to chew on.

That thin backstory is my main complaint. The financial crisis is meant to be the engine of the whole plot, yet the motives are sketched in a line or two and then abandoned. The era ends up feeling like wallpaper rather than a wound.

The other problem is that the reversals begin to pile up until some of them feel like the writers showing off rather than deepening anything. A couple of late surprises landed with a shrug for me, because I had already stopped trusting any version of events. When every rug can be pulled, you stop standing on any of them.

Even so, the film moves briskly and rarely wastes a scene, and the central conceit is sturdy enough to carry the whole runtime. I kept leaning forward to piece it together, and that counts for plenty on a Friday night. It plays like a card trick performed by someone who clearly enjoys fooling you, and I was happy to be fooled most of the time.

My final verdict is that ‘Collision Course’ is a clever, well cast and sometimes hollow puzzle that is more fun to solve than to feel. It never fully earns its social commentary, but the structure and the performances kept me hooked right up to the final frame. I give it 7.5 out of 10.

Did the four chapter structure work for you, or did the twists wear you down, and do you agree with my verdict on ‘Collision Course’ in the comments?