Review of Sabotage (2014) by Allan C — 15 Dec 2014

A muscular version of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" sounds like a cool idea, but this action flick ends up coming across more like your average low-grade Steven Seagal direct-to-video action flick.

As a starring vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed and co-written by David Ayer, who's made some smart gritty films including "Street Kings," "Harsh Times" and "Training Day," I'd have expected a whole lot better than his garbage.

Arnold plays the leader of an elite undercover DEA team who are under investigation for stealing millions of dollars from a drug cartel, but over the course of the film, team members are mysteriosly killed off in wildly grizzly manners.

There's really nothing this film got right outside of putting together a good cast (Arnold, Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard, Joe Manganiello, Martin Donovan, Olivia Williams, Harold Perrineau). The film wants gritty realism, but theists up ridiculous over-the-top ways that the team are killed off.

The film is also pointlessly gruesome, I'm all for some good gore in films, but in this film it just seemed to of place. I think director Ayer was going for a gritty "Sons of Anarchy" feel, but the film instead just seems flat and low budget.

This film either needed to be legitimately gritty (i.e. "To Live and Die in LA" or "Dark Blue") or needed to be more your typical big budget Hollywood Arnold razzle dazzle ("T2" or even "The Last Stand").

Pretty disappointing.