Sabotage *** (2014, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Olivia Williams) – Movie Review

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as drug cop John ‘Breacher’ Wharton and Sam Worthington plays James ‘Monster’ Murray, two leading members of an elite DEA task force taken down one by one after they rob a vicious drug cartel of $10million in drug money stashed in a supposedly safe house.

With plenty of dark humour and dark-toned action, this delivers the goods as a tough, fast-paced action-based police thriller, belying its status as a box-office flop in the US – it cost $35million and took only $10million there.

Arnie’s got a haircut from hell, and looks old and creaky, but he’s still got the stuff as a star screen presence. His performance of brooding menace as a tortured soul impresses, and he still has a great way with throwaway quips and a brilliant way of wasting the bad guys. An almost unrecognisable Worthington does a good, quirky job of ‘Monster’ and Mireille Enos is plenty tough as the unit’s token female, Lizzy Murray.

Olivia Williams makes an unlikely but effective co-star for Arnie as a hard-nosed police investigator, getting the film’s biggest (unintentional) laugh when she kisses Arnie, though most of the rest of an excellent cast are virtually thrown away, especially Terrence Howard who has hardly any lines as Julius ‘Sugar’ Edmonds.

The plot’s a bit muddled, but not too much so, and otherwise there’s an excellent screenplay co-written by director David Ayer, the writer of U-571 (2000), Training Day (2001), The Fast and the Furious (2001) and End of Watch (2012). Co-writer Skip Woods wrote Swordfish, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The A-Team and A Good Day to Die Hard.

Accounting for the plot muddle and some actors not having satisfying roles, the original cut of Sabotage was apparently nearly three hours but it was heavily cut to 107 minutes by the studio to deliver more of a fast-paced action-based film rather than a mystery thriller. It was planned to call it the much better Breacher, instead of the generic title it has now.

A tough, gore-spattered film with strong bloody violence, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity and drug use.

(C) Derek Winnert 2014

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/