Whelp folks, not even the Beastie Boys could save this one. Sabotage, the latest from David Ayer, the creative mind behind some of the most compelling crime dramas brought to the big screen such as Training Day and most recently End of Watch, fails miserably with his latest effort, Sabotage.
The plot itself is fairly straightforward; a group of elite DEA Agents led by Schwarzenegger, who looks more and more like the guy on the cover of your parents AARP magazine, rather than a DEA agent.
Breacher leads his team of cronies into a cartel safe house where they come away with 10 million buckaroos via a clogged toilet not even Dirty Jobs personality Mike Rowe would wanna clean up. Problem is when the team goes to retrieve the money; someone already beat them to it. This should have been a sign of things to come.
Not even Mr. Universe himself could save this one. Schwarzenegner has been on a bit of cold streak since his return to acting, and you can add this one to the list. Where should I begin"¦ first off, the script, although ambitious, is all over the place. Skip Woods and Ayer share writing duties on this one, and, dare I say, there were one too many cooks in the kitchen. Let's just say the film had a bit of an identity crisis as it went back and forth between gritty art house to mindless over-the-top action. Not to mention many under developed characters such as Sugar (Terrance Howard) and Monster (Sam Worthington). One of the more enjoyable performances goes to Mireille Enos, who plays Lizzy, the lone female of the group, plays the part like Nicolas Cage on a drug binge from Wicker Man meets Bad Lieutenant.
As far as the direction goes, Ayer did a commendable job, and it kept me involved. As for the acting, it's about as good as you can expect from an action-heavy film. Even Arnold was fairly solid as he had his usual fair share of one-liners, including one where he tells an interrogator to "take his 42% body fat and shut the **** up".
Overall the film is worth a rental at best, I wouldn't bother wasting your time going to the theater for this one. Wait till the next Terminator comes out, that's when the real Aaahhnold will be back!
