SABOTAGE (2014)

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Mireille Enos, Olivia Williams, Joe Manganiello, Terrence Howard, Malin Akerman, Josh Holloway, Harold Perrineau, Max Martini, Gary Grubbs
RunTime: 1 hr 49 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language and Violence)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/SabotageMovie

Opening Day: 10 April 2014

Synopsis: In "Sabotage", an elite DEA task force deals with the world's deadliest drug cartels. Specializing in complex mobile operations, the team executes a tactical raid on a cartel safe house. What looks to be a typical raid turns out to be an elaborate theft operation, pre-planned by the DEA squad. After hiding millions in stolen cash, the team believes their secret is safe - until someone begins assassinating them one by one.

Movie Review:

You can’t blame Arnold Schwarzenegger for wanting to play bad at this stage of his acting career; after all, his post-Governator roles haven’t exactly ignited the box office in the same way he used to before he assumed political office, so reinvention is probably less of a choice than a necessity. Anyhow, in David Ayer’s ‘Sabotage’, Schwarzenegger plays against type as the drug enforcement agent John “Breacher” Wharton, who in the opening scene is seen sitting in front of his computer screen watching a video of a woman being tortured. Yes, indeed, this ain’t the typical macho-hero role we’ve been used to seeing Schwarzenegger in, and you know what, the movie is all the better for it.

Indeed, there’s no denying that as the morally questionable leader of an undercover team of DEA bad boys, Schwarzenegger gets to do some serious acting. Like Ayer’s heroes in ‘Training Day’, ‘Street Kings’ or his most recent ‘End of Watch’, Schwarzenegger’s Breacher is a good guy with varying degrees of flaws. It is Breacher who, during a raid on a drug cartel safe house, joins his rogue band of federal agents in skimming $10 million in cash seizures; and though that money goes missing after being sent down a clogged toilet to a waiting sewer pipe, members of Breacher’s team start dying in extremely bloody ways after a desultory FBI investigation.

Among Breacher’s team are James “Monster” Murray (Sam Worthington), Joe “Grinder” Phillips (Joe Manganiello), Julius “Sugar” Edmonds (Terrence Howard), and Lizzy (Mireille Enos), the only female member of the team and arguably the most interesting one of the lot. On their backs are Olivia Williams and Harold Perrineau’s homicide detectives, the former of which more than holds her own going up against Schwarzenegger and his team, while the latter serves as occasional comic relief to bring a spot of much-welcomed levity into the otherwise grim and gritty proceedings.

Structured as a cop-centred thriller wrapped around a whodunit, Ayer, who co-wrote the movie with Skip Woods, tries to keep his audience guessing just who the betrayer among Schwarzenegger’s team is and exactly what his - or her - motivations are. There are a fair share of twists and switchbacks, and more so than in his previous movies, Ayer tries to keep the suspense up by keeping the identity of the culprit close to his chest. Unfortunately, the task ultimately proves too much for Ayer to handle, and those looking for the same realism of his previous works will undoubtedly be disappointed by the story’s gripping improbabilities.

What we suspect will prove even more problematic is the graphic violence that Ayer resorts to in the movie. To Ayer’s credit, the largely handheld shot action sequences are exciting, in particular a lengthy car chase which culminates in an especially brutal end for one of Breacher’s men. But there is plenty of blood here from open wounds and autopsy shots, whether from being pulverised by an oncoming train or being disembowelled and nailed to the ceiling. Ayer’s refusal to shy away from graphic depictions of human viscera has been criticised for bordering on pornography, and we’d like to take this opportunity to warn more squeamish readers that it does get pretty bloody violent. Nonetheless, those who love their action served with gore will definitely be pleased by this firmly R-rated thriller.

We won’t deny that Ayer has gone rather over-the-top here, and in the process sacrificing the kind of credibility that his firsthand knowledge of police work has brought to his previous cinematic depictions of it. But even though it hardly counts as his better works, it is nonetheless a must-see for fans of the aging action star Schwarzenegger, whose impassive performance is well-matched for his role as a veteran agent whose work battling the cartels has ultimately taken its toll on his personal life. This is one of Schwarzenegger’s finest performances in a while, and if you can look past the rest of the flaws, you might just find it reason enough to watch this.  

Movie Rating:

(Violent and over-the-top, this gruesome B-grade actioner is worth watching only for Schwarzenegger’s finer performance in a while)

Review by Gabriel Chong