When Arnold Schwarzenegger left movie making for politics and subsequently returned to the movies, I figured he’d have a relatively easy go. He left the movies, after all, still a potent box office draw, though perhaps not quite as big a draw as he was in his prime years.
Since his movie making return, he’s appeared in a total of six films. The first Expendables movie hardly counts as he had a single scene. The other two Expendables movies have featured greater amounts of screen time, but it is an ensemble work with many actors sharing screen time. In Mr. Schwarzenegger’s other three movies he’s had the starring role. Unfortunately, The Last Stand and Escape Plan, the later of which he co-starred in with Sylvester Stallone, haven’t exactly lit the box office on fire. With 2014’s Sabotage, he’s an unfortunately three for three.
The biggest crime of both The Last Stand and Escape Plan, to me, were that they were both rather mediocre features that didn’t really dazzle or excite you beyond the time you were watching them. With Sabotage, written and directed by David Ayer, whose past credits include writing such features as The Fast and the Furious, Training Day, and End of Watch (which he also directed), you at least figured you’d have an interestingly written work.
But a busy plot, as is the case with Sabotage, doesn’t equal a good film.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as John “Breacher” Wharton, a head of a deep undercover drug investigation unit who, at the start of the movie, is watching some gruesome footage which amounts to the last living moments of his wife. As we soon find out, she and his son were kidnapped by some mean drug cartel types (the why’s are revealed a little later on). She -and we assume his son- were tortured and eventually killed.
From this point we move to several months later. Breacher and his crew are about to pull off a big bust of a drug cartel member’s mansion. Their mission, however, has a dark side: Breacher’s crew knows there is a palette of 100 million dollars hidden in this mansion and they intend to steal a good chunk of it for themselves.
They manage to take approximately $10 million and hide it in the mansion’s sewage but when they return to pick up the money, its gone.
The DEA and the cartel the unit hit quickly figure out there is money missing (it is never really stated within the context of the film how both entities find out, but people on comment boards have noted it could involve weighing the money. Though Breacher and company blew the remaining $90 million in bills apart, a thorough examination of the ashes and surviving bills would have revealed a weight, hence cash, discrepancy).
The DEA boys go hard after Breacher and his gang, separating and interrogating them while trying to get them to flip on each other. No one, in the end, talks or admits to the theft. After several months and no new evidence found, the “higher ups” give up and decide to allow Breacher and his gang to get back together again. I found this part a little hard to swallow but, whatever. I accepted the initial premise and figured that from there, things would get interesting.
Because of the dark nature of their work, Breacher’s crew are far from angels. In fact, they’re only a small step away from the nasty characters they’re tasked to bust. They’re loud, perverse, and cruel. They’re hard drinking and hard charging, and with $10 million taken and the DEA no longer breathing down their back, it seemed to me obvious where the movie would go from here: The boys -and woman- of the group would start looking at each other, seeing which one of them took the money. Which one of them is a bigger rat than the others.
Soon, members of this elite unit wind up dead and I figure we’re moving into Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None territory, a murder mystery as well as a crime drama.
Unfortunately, it was precisely at this point, the point where everything was well laid out and you’re eager to see how this murder mystery plays out, that things start to fizzle.
Badly.
To begin, the unit getting back together was totally mishandled. I figured they’d all be on guard, watching their backs and not exactly “chummy” with each other. It seemed logical that they would suspect one of their own of taking the money, yet none of them shows any outright suspicion in those early going scenes.
Yes, there is a lack of “trust” among the group, but the way its presented it seems to be more related to the fact that they’re rusty.
Anyway, when the first of their members is killed, another police officer joins the mix. She is investigating the death and while all indications are that it was a drunken accident, the death of a second member of the squad changes things.
From there, we have Breacher and the investigator checking leads and using each other. Frankly, credibility gets stretched waaaaay too far by this point. Breacher should be a suspect by this point and its very hard to believe the investigator would welcome him at her side.
On the movie runs and on come the bodies. Graphic, bloody. The film looks to straddle the line between horror and crime drama, but as the minutes tick by you care less and less. When the final revelation comes, the guilty party appears only too obvious. When you find out why the money was stolen, an already heavily strained plot snaps completely.
Did the thief really need all $10 million to accomplish his/her goals? Seems really far fetched.
In the end, I can’t recommend Sabotage despite the fact that it features a fascinating cast of characters and a, at least at the beginning, fascinating plot concept.
Too bad.