28 March, 2014

2. Sabotage


March 28th in Chicago: Being a child of the 80's, Arnold Schwarzenegger  played a prominent role in my youth. Last year I went to see The Last Stand on opening night and even saw Escape Plan with Sylvester Stallone. Despite the fact that both of those films were terrible, I'm willing to check out a new Ah-Nuld release (usually against my better judgment). I saw this trailer a few weeks ago and I thought pretty highly of it. It's directed by David Ayer who did a nice job with the gritty End of Watch in 2012 so why not take a chance. The trailer was interesting, the plot was a bit old but at least Arnold was playing an everyman type and perhaps he could pull it off.

Arnold is the leader of an elite DEA special ops team that takes down a cartel's safehouse that has a mound of cash hidden inside (nicely and neatly stacked on a pallet of course). Now in the trailer, I got the sense that Arnold and his team go to far with a drug lord and said drug lord tries to get revenge on Arnold by kidnapping his family. Then Arnold in turn seeks vengeance on the drug lord. But not so fast, it turns out that Arnold's family has already been killed (technically that fact is confirmed later in the film but it's unmistakeable that something has happened to his wife) and the team skims $10 million from the palletized drug cash. So in the first 10 minutes, I'm like, "holy sh*t! Arnold is an anti-hero! Nice." When the team returns to the septic drain where the stored the cash, its gone. Then one by one the team members are picked off.

Arnold's character is John "Breacher Wharton. The rest of his team is as follows:


Obviously this crew resembles a biker gang more than DEA agents but, they're a specials ops group so they look a bit unorthodox. When "Pyro" gets killed, his death is investigated by Atlanta Homicide Detective Caroline Brentwood (played well by a nearly unrecognizable Olivia Williams who I used to have a thing for) and she gets a bit more than she bargained for, given. 

The plot was good throughout the film as I was left guessing about what happened to the money as Breacher's team get killed off. However, the scenes got a bit more 80's action filmy and it kind of took away from the plot. Suffice to say I liked how the film started out and where it was going but I wasn't to pleased with the drive or the destination. Waddaya gonna do? The film was not good but it wasn't terrible like his last 2 films. The ending is a bit if a surprise but there's a scene after the climactic and very unrealistic car chase where Ah-Nuld just disappears Batman style. Like a 66 y/o 260 pound mass of muscle is going to stealthily vanish with 30 pounds of gear on him and an assault rifle.

Since the film wasn't good I focused on a few different things like how Brentwood was able to afford such a huge and lovely home on a cop's salary. That home was not inside the perimeter and it was at 2 story multi-room home with an in ground pool in the back and a huge yard. Also, when she and Ah-Nuld go to a former team member's home, it's way out in the sticks (probably near the South Carolina border on I-85, as a former truck driver I recognize the stretch of highway) and after discovering the crime scene, she calls for additional units. What kind of jurisdiction does she have? He radio is able to reach Atlanta some 90 miles away? Ah-Nuld also has the inevitable work out scene while he's being tailed as a result of the missing money. It's Ah-Nuld, I know he's strong.

I guess this film might be the best of what you're going to get out of Ah-Nuld these days. Make no mistake it's not good but it might be worth watching on DVD or HBO when it comes out. Unless you're a huge fan, it's not worth the time & expense. 


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