Sabotage Review

2 out of 5

Director: David Ayer
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Terrance Howard, Joe Manganiello, Olivia Williams, Max Martini, Josh Holloway
Released: March 28, 2014
Rated: R
Runtime: 109 min

Action, Crime

The Verdict

Thumbs Down: Skip It

Arnold Schwarzenegger completists only. It’s rated R for strong bloody violence, pervasive language, sexual references, nudity and drug use.

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Synopsis

John Wharton (Arnold Schwarzenegger), code named “Breacher”, is the leader of a very elite team of DEA agents. They’re a very efficient team and they get the job done. After one successful drug bust, they find a huge stash of cartel money. Some of the money goes missing and the agency immediately starts their investigation of the elite team. The members of the team begin to get assassinated one by one. It looks like a lot of sabotage for $10 million dollars.

Spoiler Warning!!! Full Review Below

Full Review (Spoilers)

Producers: Bill Block

The Good

The action in this movie was decent. The team of Breaher (Schwarzenegger), Grinder (Manganiello), Monster (Worthington), Sugar (Howard), Lizzy (Enos), Pyro (Martini) and Neck (Holloway) worked well for the beginning of the movie. They moved like a well-oiled tactically powered machine. They had interesting solutions for the problems put in front of them.

The Bad

The last half of the movie completely failed its purpose of a crime drama. Sugar and Lizzy are revealed as the assailants of the elite squad and you find out that Breacher is the one who stole the money. Each scene felt rushed and just loosely pieced together.

The reveal of Breacher as the person with the 10 million dollars just didn’t make much sense. It worked as a bribe to a police official to get the location of the murder to his family. The cost of getting revenge shouldn’t cost that much especially for a man of his talents. He should have found the killer long time ago without the need of flashing such a large amount of cash.

The trailers for the movie would make you believe he’s trying to save his family from being murdered. It was very misleading and didn’t capture the good parts of the movie. Whoever cut the scenes for the trailer did a very bad job. You’re lead to believe it’s a race against time movie when it’s not the case at all.

The lead investigator of Pryo’s death just appeared to be incompetent at her job. Her one night stand with Breacher just felt a bit forced. They didn’t portray much chemistry to begin with and you could tell while the scene played out. She even allowed Breacher to escape after killing Lizzy.

Lizzy is very paranoid and unstable right after the first mission. She becomes a killer and decides to take out the entire team for the 10 million dollars. You would think all of the missions they’ve been through would mean more than some money. She did some gruesome things to her team members.

Originally published on the Bring On The Reviews Blogspot blog on April 17, 2014.

Sabotage (2014) Cast and Details

Sabotage (2014) is directed by David Ayer and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Terrance Howard, Joe Manganiello and Olivia Williams. It runs 109 minutes and is rated R. You can look up the full cast and crew on IMDb. You might also like my Collateral review.

DC's Hypothetical Corner

Let’s say I change one thing. Maybe that one thing will make this movie better or more watchable.

It would be a different movie if Sugar and Lizzy actually stole the money, then their killing spree would actually make sense. The thought of having them kill the team just to find out who stole the money didn’t work out so well. It would play for a better reveal than seeing Breacher pay off a corrupted official for revenge.

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