To put it bluntly, Arnold Schwarzenegger's post-politics comeback has been
one Predator-sized flop. What has he really accomplished other than trampling
over his former glory as an iconic action hero? Not even joining the equally
grizzled stars of
The Expendables could help, and the solo films he's
starred in have been pretty embarrassing. Bet you already forgot
Escape Plan
and that was barely six months ago. What Arnold needed, and quite badly, was to
stop trading on his past (uh oh Terminator fans) and be a different type of bad
ass. Fortunately, that's when
End of Watch director David Ayer came
calling with
Sabotage, simply Schwarzenegger's best film in years.
Ayer has made a living off gritty cop thrillers, usually focusing on
corruption and brotherhood, and Sabotage is no different. It allows for
Schwarzenegger to be the leader of a group that aren't just a bunch of
muscle-bound stereotypes, but characters with some pretty serious flaws. He
plays John "Breacher" Wharton, the head gorilla in a special DEA unit
full of rowdy hair-trigger animals. Mireille Enos, Terrence Howard, Josh
Holloway, Joe Manganiello, Max Martini, Sam Worthington, and Kevin Vance make
up his rough 'n tumble squad who specialize in vulgarity and gunning down drug
cartels. During one particularly bloody raid, Breacher's unit makes away with a
cool $10M in cash, quite literally flushing it down the toilet. But when they
come back to claim it, the money is nowhere to be found. All they've got to
show for the theft is the federal government breathing down their necks and a
lengthy suspension.
Well, they do get one more thing: dead. Pretty soon after reforming, members
of the team start dropping like flies. Breacher calls it an "occupational
hazard" but when guys are having their entire homes plowed under by
trains, or getting gutted like a fish and nailed to the ceiling, it's clear
somebody is sending a message. Already on edge, the unit begins to turn on one
another as they try to sort out who the bad guys are and if there's a traitor
in their close-knit family. Olivia Williams plays a dogged federal agent
assigned to the case, and when she's not making off-color jokes with her partner
(Harold Perrineau) she's trying to figure out what Breacher's team is hiding.
Ayer piles up red herrings quicker than the bullets and bodies stack up, and
for the most part the mystery remains at barrel's length, throughout. You might
be surprised to learn the story is based on an Agatha Christie novel,
And
Then There Were None, and it walks the line between whodunit and brutal
action flick pretty well until the plot starts to unravel towards the end.
While the less said about it the better, there's a major twist surrounding a
character's deeply personal motivation that casts everything in a new light. It
also serves to needlessly burden a film that wasn't built on the sturdiest of
legs, and we see in the rushed shoot-out finale an attempt to just wrap things
up neatly. Stacks of dismembered and splattered bodies, along with a healthy
amount of torture, should fend off anyone with a nervous stomach. Safe to say
this is the most violent film Schwarzenegger has ever been a part of, although
it's not nearly as torturous as
Jingle All the Way.
Mainly it's good to see Schwarzenegger as an authoritative, deeply
intelligent and intimidating character; playing his age without making light of
it. He gets a lot of help from a great supporting cast, better than a movie
like this would normally bother to assemble. Enos is deadly as a squirrelly,
drug-addicted member of Breacher's team who may be more trouble than her
ass-kicking and smart mouth are worth. The mark of a great director is getting
the best out of his actors, and Ayer has invigorated Schwarzenegger in a way we
haven't seen in a long time. Hopefully we see him take on more films like
Sabotage
rather than trying to recreate the past.
