"Sabotage" Review

Sabotage

1.5 out of 5 stars

Rated R:

Quite a few scenes of bloody violence
Internal organs are shown
Features two girls making out, one of them topless
Several other instances of female topless nudity








I heard about "Sabotage" through commercials on television. There were few to no interviews or television spots. After seeing it, I understand why.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a DEA agent known as Breacher. He and his crew storm a cartel where they are to confiscate millions of dollars. Something happens there, the money disappears, and they are under investigation.

For some reason, they refuse to tell anyone what happened to the money. This part had me very confused. When they are in the cartel's home, it looks like Breacher burns the money. I could not figure out why he did it, and when he and his crew being questioned, it is unclear why they will not say anything. Later on, it is revealed that they were planning to take the money, but it disappeared. The money still exists somewhere, but why was it shown burning?

After the investigation is dropped, someone starts brutally killing people in Breacher's crew one-by-one. The plot then focuses on another investigation by an agent named Caroline (Olivia Williams). She wants to find out who is behind everything, and none of the main characters will tell her anything.

Even though this is mildly interesting, there is little reason to care about it. None of the characters who die are developed well enough to be of any concern to the audience. Furthermore, the beginning leaves so many distracting questions about what happened that it is hard to focus on what is going on.

The performances are sub-par. Schwarzenegger is a good action star, but he is not much of an actor. In some scenes when the characters are talking to each other, it feels like watching a couple of WWE wrestlers arguing. Only two of the main DEA agents actually give convincing performances: Terrence Howard as Sugar and Mireille Enos as the drugged-out Lizzy. However, the bad quality of the writing does not justify seeing this film just for them.

There is a plot point about revenge that is interesting. Had the movie focused more attention on that rather than some convoluted mess, it would have been so much more enjoyable to watch. The only reason to see it is for the well-executed action scenes, but there are not even enough of those to justify wasting time on it.

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