MOVIE REVIEW - Sabotage

Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in yet another action movie, Sabotage. 

You might think that it may be time to hang it up on some of these kind of movies, and select his roles, perhaps a big more carefully.  He is in his upper 60's now, and it's becoming more difficult all the time to believe he is an action hero of this magnitude.  But, here he is.

Truth is, HE is really not the big problem in this movie.  The trouble is, this is an ugly, ugly movie. The writers and directors go to great lengths to show us every single imaginable blown off body part, pools of blood, and exceedingly gruesome death scenes. Over and over again. 

This is the story of an elite DEA enforcement troupe led by John (Arnold).  They go covert, and find themselves in the worst drug havens one can imagine.  But after one raid goes wrong, they lose a team member, and someone rips off the drug cartel of about 10 million dollars.  The money of course is considered missing by the DEA, and John is suspended, and the group is put on hold.

But after the investigation is over, they are cleared and they go back to work. Trouble is, the group starts getting picked off one-by-one in grizzly form, by someone we don't know.  Since the murders happen in Atlanta, the APD gets involved and they begin their own investigation. Who is doing this? Is it one of their own trying to get the 10 million? And why?  Or is it the cartel wanting their 10 mill back? 

If you like a to see horrible, grizzly death, this is your movie.  This is amazingly bloody, with a high emphasis on the gross-me-out factor.  Being fair this is horror movie violent, and I guess it needs to be in the directors mind, because that's about all its got. Thin on plot (which is easy to figure out in the first 15 minutes), and short on any real attempt at serious movie making.  This will though, have the "I like Arnold" factor, and I admit I do.  When he gets the right role, he can be fun on screen, even in these movies.  

Most of these Arnold movies do have an underlying charm that make them palatable, but not here. This is ugly, dark, dank, and charmless.  But, I think they felt no choice, since they are dealing with the cartel, who are truly horrible people in the mix.   But this will have limited appeal, and will come and go quickly.  

Sabotage.  Tough stuff , not really a date night flick.