Sabotage Review – Total Garbage

by E-G March 28, 2014

Arnold Schwarzenegger said he’d be back, and when Arnold speaks, our butts are in the seats. And for every miss like The Last Stand, there’s some good quotable Arnie in Escape Plan… and then there’s Sabotage, the DEA cop thriller by David “End of Watch” Ayers.

The film opens strongly enough with some gun violence, before the two hours we spend with mostly annoying characters, like LOSTâ€™s Josh Holloway and The Killingâ€™s Mireille Enos in a role thatâ€™s so grating, you may end up offing yourself during the film. Read that carefully: two hours of annoying characters. Well, at least there will be more gunplay right? Would you be surprised if there isn’t as much as the trailers would lead you to believe?

No, Sabotage is a thriller, a “who dunnit” with layers that you don’t give a shit about. Who stole the money? Who really cares, give us something interesting, not cops bantering about their sexual conquests or DEA agents also bantering about their sexual conquests. The pacing is so slow and awkward, balanced poorly with “radical camerawork” like mounting a camera on the muzzle of the gun pointed back at the shooter… FELLINI-ESQUE! And the violence, we keep hearing about how “gory” it is and pushing the limits of the R rating. It doesn’t and it isn’t.

Of the entire cast, it’s Sam Worthington, you know, Avatar’s Jakesully, who gives a real performance, so that should sum up what to expect. Arnold’s fine, but wasted and overall, the film ends up being a letdown and a bore. Skip it completely and pretend it never existed.

ASIDE: And why the F does everybody fire through walls in this movie?