Sabotage

Not expected this from the director. For a title called 'Sabotage' which had one of our times greatest action hero in it the story drags with lots of drama than stunts. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not young anymore and he's not capable of heavy stunts, but still he handled well those crucial parts. No doubt he was good, and also the direction, but the story was not well written. Especially the twist was so pale and the supporting characters were hyped better than the Arnie's, but failed to hold and deliver when the story needed them. Due to create the suspense some of the assassins were kept undisplayed for the viewers and that is another let down. Because in the whole movie action sequences were the weakest except the opening scene and those murders were somehow produced expectancy. This movie was not bad, but an average. It can be watched once though it may not fulfill your thirst for fine enjoyment. You may like what I did not, so I can't put it to discardable list. 6½/10

I cannot help but wonder if this movie would have gotten better reviews if Schwarzenegger had not been cast in the lead role. I get the feeling that people had certain expectations due to the choice of actor. In any case, the ridiculously low one and two star ratings are rubbish. They are utterly undeserved as far as I am concerned. Personally, I quite liked the movie. Sure it is not Oscar material and it will not go on any of my top ten lists but I found it rather enjoyable to watch. Schwarzy is not young any more so you should not expect him to play roles as he did at the height of his career before he made the unfortunate decision to wade into the dirty waters of politics. Still he performed quite alright in the various action scenes in this movie. And there are a fair amount of action in the movie as well as a fair amount of blood substitute. It is not really an all out action movie though and the story that underpins the action have a certain amount of drama in it. I would say that the actors in general are doing a god job of their roles. The drug enforcement team looks more like a biker gang than a police team but then, to work undercover in the world of the drug cartels you really have to be part crazy. There are no young sexy chicks in this movie, unless you count a few scenes in bars and strip clubs. Actually the two female lead characters can be said to be downright ugly which may be another reason why some people of the younger audience give the movie a low rating although that is of course pure speculation on my part :-) . In any case, I think the choice of female characters fits perfectly well with the rest of the movie (as well as Schwarzy’s age). The story is a mix of the fairly classical one of revengeful drug cartels and incompetent FBI directors with a bit of a twist from the money heist and the disappearing money. The implementation might be a wee bit imperfect at times but to me it was a good enough story. I did like the ending with the classical shoot out in the bar although I also did consider taking a star off due to the tragic last few scenes. What can I say? I am a sucker for happy endings.