Sabotage (2014)

Sabotage (2014)

 

3/10

 

Starring

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sam Worthington

Olivia Williams

Terrence Howard

Joe Manganiello

 

Directed by David Ayer

 

Well, what a waste of time this movie was, which even failed at the box office.

If you need a character to play a stiff role, then Arnold Schwarzenegger is your man. Even though this movie has the whole '90s-style action movie vibe, it’s toned down a lot from what you’d expect from a typical '90s action film. The story can best be described as shabby, wasting more than a third of its runtime telling you about everyone and everything in the most boring way before kicking off the main plot.

The movie has a very convoluted beginning but then falls into a rhythm where you can start figuring out who’s who and what you’re supposed to be focused on. This doesn’t mean the movie still didn’t play hide and seek with itself, tripping over its very own idea of suspense. With pacing problems and some truly horrible characters, this movie can be hard to watch. Even though the cast roster looks promising, every character was annoying, and you’ll find yourself wishing they all get killed off. One thing I can tell you to watch out for before seeing this movie is that the testosterone level is so high, it becomes silly.

The plot introduces us to John (Schwarzenegger), who leads a team of DEA special operations. From the get-go, during their bust, you can tell that this team is not all there. Every member seems to have a screw loose somewhere. The drug bust is a success, and the team steals $10 million. They hide the money and blow up the whole building, hoping to get rid of the evidence—but things don’t go as planned. First, the money they hid away is stolen. Then, because of the way things went down, they’re suspected of theft and suspended while the investigation goes nowhere.

When the team is reinstated to their roles, things don’t get any better. They start dropping dead one by one. The remaining members begin to suspect that the drug dealers they took down are behind the hits. But as the investigation continues, we discover there’s more going on and a lot of framing happening. The whole plot reminds me of the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None.

In the end, this is one of those movies where if you never see it, you’re not missing a thing. We, who have seen it, wish we had not.