I am a bunch of different movie reviewers rolled into on. I can be objective and look at a movie purely from an analytical point of view and point out all of it's strengths and flaws and accurately give it the appropriate grade. I can be kind of a movie fanboy and go watch a movie I'm excited to see and give a few flaws the benefit of the doubt and my grade can be slightly on the biased side. I can see a movie that I had no desire to see and it can totally change my opinion of the film and my grade would be slightly biased too because I was expecting it to be so bad that even though it probably wasn't that great of a movie... it was still better than what I envisioned it to be. Then, finally, there is the 12-year-old, refuses to grow up, cream in the pants whenever I see his name Arnold Schwarzenegger fan who believes that Ah-nuld can do absolutely no wrong. And therefore, I'm unable to give his films the proper review because it's an Arnold movie. And the man gives me dude-boners.
Let me start with this... had Arnold not been attached to this film two things would've happened. One, I probably wouldn't have liked it. At all. And two, I probably wouldn't know that I didn't like it... because I wouldn't have seen it.
Arnold movies always have a certain amount of cheese attached to them. Most of them don't take themselves too seriously. Look at his imdb and you'll see what I mean. They're almost all fun because they know exactly what they are. The Terminator films edged on the side of serious, but even then they still had fun with it. True Lies is not only my favorite Arnold movie, but it's still one of the best action movies ever made and it's riddled with cheese and not taking itself seriously in the slightest. So, when I saw that David Ayer (helmer of such gritty ass cop movies as End of Watch and Training Day) I wondered to myself how they were going to be able to merge the forces of grit with the forces of cheese. The answer... very awkwardly.
Sabotage puts Arnold as a DEA task force leader with a group of DEA agents who successfully raid bad dude's homes, kill homies unashamedly, and wreck anyone who stand in their way. Now, this time around they've decided to take a bit of the pie for themselves and wind up stealing nearly ten million dollars from the Mexican cartel they've so easily taken down. They hide the money during the raid, but when they come back days later to retrieve said cash, it is missing. No one gets paid. A short while down the road, the team starts getting killed one by one. The FBI becomes involved with the case assuming it's the cartel after them, but everyone in the group knows it's probably someone amongst them.
Now, that plot description by itself would probably sell me on the movie. But, once you show me these psychos on the team that Arnold has recruited... it's a different story. When you've got a team of (technically) cops that are getting offed one by one... chances are that you're going to want to give a shit about one or two of them, right? Ayer has decided to make this untrue. So, instead of giving Arnold this rag-tag team of law enforcing winners... he provides a team of racist, sexist, literally insane sociopaths. I wouldn't trust a single one of these white-trash drunken brutes with a badge. They all come off as criminals and not one of them really has a redeeming quality. They are overly aggressive with women as well as each other. And it's a little bothersome that Arnold just kind of stands back and watches this sociopathic behavior with a smirk and a cigar. But, hey, if they're okay with Arnold (gulp) I guess they're okay with me?
It's true. None of these guys are worth the film that's wasted on them. None of them deserve to be living in the first place. So, when they start getting killed... no one really cares. Not really even Arnold. "Monster" (Sam Worthington) is the only one who shows the slightest hint of a soul, but even then, if you look into his eyes too long you'll wind up wondering why there's a gun slowly rising to your temple.
So, it has to become the Arnold show for this movie to be redeemed. And yes, Arnold fans, he does deliver. It's a hard-R rated film. Arnold curses and kills up a storm. It is gratuitous in its violence... definitely the most violent Arnold film I've ever seen... but isn't that what we want out of an Arnold film? Blood, guts, and body parts all at the hands of an Austrian killing machine? That aspect of the film delivers more than any Arnold fan could ask for. He's king badass and takes no shit from no one. This is my Arnold fantasy. Unfortunately, it's occupied by a bunch of sadistic hillbillies he calls friends. Once you can get past that part... it's a gritty little fun ride. Especially the last shot of the movie. This is how I want to go. I won't spoil it for the (maybe) one person who thinks they might be still interested in seeing it. But, it's quite righteous. I hope Arnold will take the best parts of Sabotage and learn from the weaker parts. Because if we had the cheese we love so much from him mixed with the violence and grit of this film properly... we're looking at one hell of an Arnold return.
C+
Arnold's scenes: A
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