Sabotage (**)
Directed
by: David Ayer
Starring:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Olivia Williams, Mireille Enos, Terence
Howard, Joe Manganiello, Josh Holloway, Harold Perrineau, Martin Donovan, Max
Martini
Seen:
April 17th 2014
**
Out of ****
Sabotage
offers a mixed bag of goods, from some really entertaining ass-kicking to an
unexpected blend of horror-whodunnit murder and bloody mayhem. Arnold
Schwarzenegger is a big presence and we are even given a glimpse at his very
impressive exercise routine, but the presence of so many big(gish)-name (or at
least big-face) actors detracts from the movie in that only one character
really gets any form of an origin story. This specific origin story also ends up being
little more than a twist reveal near the end of the movie. Sabotage even tries
to cheat away its near-complete lack of character development by giving everyone
a nickname, but this does little other than giving perhaps one characteristic
per character.
An
elite team of DEA agents, headed by Breacher (Schwarzenegger), raids a cartel
safe-house and, before destroying the massive stack of money they find in the
basement, steal $10 million for themselves. In the raid Smoke gets killed, but
the husband-wife pairing of Monster (Worthington) and Lizzy (Enos), Grinder (Manganiello),
Sugar (Howard), Neck (Holloway), Pyro (Martini), and Tripod get away seemingly
untouched. When they return to claim the stashed cash it’s gone however,
leaving the team uncertain of what or who could have stolen it. Adding to their
woes is the fact that they are suspended while they’re investigated for the
disappearing stolen money. The team parties up a storm, and when they wake, one
of their own has been murdered – Pyro’s RV was parked in front of a train, and
all that remains of him are scraps of meat by the side of the railroad, with
investigator Caroline Brentwood (Williams) and her partner Darius Jackson (Perrineau)
tagging the ‘evidence’.
When
more of the team members die in gruesome but curious circumstances, Brentwood
teams up with Breacher and they discover mutilated bodies and murdered
team-mates and then witness the murder of yet another team member. With the team’s
numbers dwindling almost by the minute, those still alive start turning on each
other, and the suspicious team members go to extremes in the battle for the
money and also for survival.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s return to action cinema has been welcome over the past two
years, but with Sabotage, even though it offers some blasting action at times,
the rolling momentum crawls to a slow bleed. Sabotage is excessively brutal and
violent, and it felt like three dialogue staples were used whenever the writers
could not immediately think up a next line: (1) What the f***?..., (2) Why the
f***?..., and (3) Shut the f*** up. The action scenes are well-filmed and keep
the adrenaline pumping, but they cannot carry the movie on their own, causing
for a relatively enjoyable but ultimately forgettable gut-punch of a movie that
will soon be out of sight, and out of mind.
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