Sabotage: Movie Review

Writer/director David Ayers has built his career on urban-crime/gritty cop flicks like “Harsh Times”, “Street King”, and the terrific “End of Watch”.  His latest effort, the Arnold Schwarzenegger led “Sabotage” sports a terrific cast, but unfortunately falls flat.  The film is never thrilling and rarely entertaining and that is a serious problem for an action-crime-drama about DEA Agents getting picked off one-by-one.  “Sabotage” should be fun, but it’s just not.

John ‘Breacher’ Wharton (Schwarzenegger) and his elite DEA task force, which includes Monster (Sam Worthington), Grinder (Joe Manganiello), Neck (Josh Holloway), Sugar (Terrence Howard), Lizzy (Mireille Enos) and a few others come under investigation by the FBI when ten million dollars goes missing after a raid on a cartel safe house.  The team actually planned on stealing the money, but someone beat them to it.

When members of Breacher’s team start to get picked off, Breacher and his team believe that it is the cartel who are seeking revenge.  Also seeking answers is a local detective (Olivia Williams) who winds up working with Breacher to figure out what is really going on.

“Sabotage” is not the worst Schwarzenegger film to come out recently, that honor goes to “Escape Plan”.  The cast does its best to keep things moving, Worthington and Enos fairing the best. Schwarzenegger just looks bored and tired and unfortunately lacks the range he needs to make us feel for his character.    I know die-hard Arnold fans are going to check this one out regardless (I would), but this one is better off waiting for Netflix or Redbox.

By: Marc Ferman