Sabotage

Movie Trailer

Released: March 2014

Director: David Ayer

Run Time: 109 Minutes

Rated: R

Cast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger: John Wharton
Sam Worthington: James Murray
Josh Holloway: Eddie Jordan
Terence Howard: Julius Edmonds
Mireille Enos: Lizzy Murray
Olivia Williams: Detective Caroline Brentwood
Harold Perrineau: Jackson

It used to be that when Arnold Schwarzenegger headlined a movie, it put people’s butts in movie theater seats.  How could it not?  This is Arnold Schwarzenegger.  This is the Austrian Oak, Mr. Universe, and The Terminator.  When The Terminator hit movie theaters in 1984, Schwarzenegger became a household name overnight, despite how unpronounceable his name was at the time.  His first real break was Conan: The Barbarian in 1982, but it was The Terminator that made him a star.  Ever since, he’s been one of the most bankable and successful action movie stars in cinema history.  With films like Commando, Predator, Twinsand Total Recall, Arnold has had some of the biggest hits.  Not all of his films have been successful, but none of his movies have gone direct-to-video.  After 2003’s Terminator 3, Arnold took a break from the film industry to pursue two terms as California’s governor.  He’s made some cameos after 2003, but it wasn’t until 2010’s Expendables, that he was considering returning to the acting field.  While his appearance in The Expendables was brief, it was memorable.  He was given a much larger role in the second film.  After The Expendables 2 came out, his first lead role in nearly a decade was LionGate Studios’ The Last Stand in which he played a small-town sheriff.  It was a moderate success, but it was far from the smash hits that Schwarzenegger was used to having on a regular basis.  It wasn’t a bad effort.  Earlier this year, Schwarzenegger starred in the gritty action-thriller, Sabotage.

The film opens with a bang as D.E.A agent John Wharton and his team infiltrate a drug cartel’s hideout in search of a 10 million dollar payout.  After successfully eliminating the gang, the team decides to take their cut of the money.  After sneaking the money out through a drain, they discover that the money is gone.  After 6  months of being scrutinized by the D.E.A., Wharton and his rag-tag team of misfits are back in action only to find themselves targets of a mysterious assassin.  I kind of figured it would take Arnie a while to get back into the swing of things.  While The Last Stand was surprisingly a decent action film, Sabotage is a mixed bag.  Don’t get me wrong, I love gritty action movies, and Sabotage has plenty of grit.  There’s just a few problems here.  Okay, there’s more than a few problems.

Let’s talk about the characters:  There’s not one person here who’s likable.  Even Arnold’s character, John, comes across as a bit of a dirtbag.  The way these characters interact with each other is like putting a bunch of schoolyard bullies in a room together.  It’s not pretty.  These characters are supposed to be professional undercover D.E.A agents.  So, why don’t they act like it?  The performances by the actors are fine, particularly from Sam Worthington, but it doesn’t matter because the characters are poorly written.  Because of that, Sabotage inadvertently telegraphs who the problem child is a mile away.  This is one of those movies that is totally predictable, and you pretty much know who is responsible for the chaos almost right from the get-go.  That should never happen in a movie like this.  Arnold’s character suffers from having the cliche of losing his family to a violent gang in his past, so he’s pretty grumpy throughout the whole thing.

The action in Sabotage is pretty intense, but it suffers from being too excessive.  Were they trying to make an action movie or a horror movie here?  There’s plenty of gunfights and butt-kicking to be had, but Sabotage is gory.  It really is.  This is probably the goriest Schwarzenegger film I’ve ever seen.  I’m a gore-hound, so stuff like this doesn’t really bother me, but I think they went WAY overboard with it.  If David Ayer was trying to go for realism, he failed miserably.  It’s like the filmmakers wanted to see how far they could push the envelope.  They certainly pushed pretty hard.  I think that’s also a complement because it’s actually nice to see a movie not shy away from brutal violence like I’ve seen before.  Also, the film moves at a fairly brisk pace, so it doesn’t slow down a whole lot.  It’s also nice to see Sam Worthington do a movie that’s a little more hardcore than what I’ve seen him in.  I like Worthington as an actor, I really do.  I think he’s honest in what he does.  Is he the greatest actor?  No, but he’s a lot of fun to watch.  Seeing him take on a role like this is refreshing, because he’s not the hero of the film.

I really like Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I really do.  I like the fact that he plays a human being in Sabotage and not a comic book-style superhero.  I think that his performance in this movie is one of his better ones, but that doesn’t make it a particularly good movie.  But the fact of the matter is, is that Arnold isn’t the draw that he used to be.  I’m not going to blame him for getting older, it happens to everybody, I just don’t think he can really headline an action movie like this anymore.  He’s clearly still in great shape, though, don’t get me wrong.  I just feel that his time is getting close to being done.  Schwarzenegger’s got a few more big movies on the way: Terminator: Genisys, Triplets(sequel to Twins), and a new Conan movie is in the works.  If Arnold decided to to retire after doing The Legend of Conan, it would be awesome, actually, seeing as how he would bring his career full circle.  It was Conan that put Schwarzegger on the map, and Conan could be his last film.  I think that would wrap up an amazing career.  But that’s just speculation on my part.  As far as Sabotage goes, I may have to watch it again, but I can’t honestly recommend this movie unless you are a major fan of Arnie’s and of brutally violent films.  Personally, I enjoyed it despite its problems, and I don’t think it Sabotaged Arnold’s career(Ha, I’m so funny.).  I’m giving this one a 7/10.

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