Directed by:
David AyerCinematography:
Bruce McCleeryComposer:
David SardyCast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Joe Manganiello, Harold Perrineau, Josh Holloway, Terrence Howard, Olivia Williams, Mireille Enos, Gary Grubbs (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
John "Breacher" Wharton (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the head of an elite Drug Enforcement Administration task force, leads his agents in a drug bust that yields millions of dollars. They pocket the loot that they confiscate, believing that their secret is safe. However, when a mysterious assassin starts assassinating the task force members one by one, he believes it's one of his own team and sets out to find who it is and bring them to justice. (QED International)
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Reviews (8)
Ayer is once again digging into the nastiness of the guardians of the American dream in a way no one wants to see, except with more stones in his path than he's used to. The fact that Schwarzenegger hits his acting limits just by saying hello is simply a problem with a character who is basically unparalleled in his career to date due to his character layering, and it's not helped by the writing hand of Skip Woods, whose B-movie mentality occasionally kicks the ball well out of reality and we have to wait quite a while before it lands where it's supposed to again. An interesting aspect of Ayer is his high and unforced emancipated attitudes, which few would expect from a specialist in police themes. The women here are not the parents and bearers of liberal values in a humdrum world of drug cartels and rotten cops, but the movers of the plot, equivalent to the men, and sources of moments of surprise. As a result, the wider audience suffers too, unable to come to terms with the fact that there’s no instant sex symbol, just the insane butch Mireille Enos and the ironic investigator Olivia Williams, both excellently played.
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A film as ridiculous as Schwarzenegger's acting and feigned toughness. Otherwise, nothing against Arnold, I like him in his older and time-tested films where he isn't limited by his narrow acting range, but he doesn't have the acting chops for a complex character haunted by demons and the frustration of his beloved wife's death. Moreover, with his fading physiognomy, he looks like a fist in the eye among those young, horny wolves (and one very wild "bitch" played by – unusual for her – Mireille Enos). The B-movie script, which makes less and less sense as it goes on, doesn't help things either. The result is a kind of sweaty play on a raw thriller, with a lot of plot filler and deaf spots, where even the wannabe badass lines feel forced and the violence is gratuitous.
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The film has a simple plot and some of the illogicalities are blatantly obvious, but I feel that this is quite normal in action films. What I liked is the fact that it's incredibly realistic when it comes to the violence, which perhaps the last Expendables lacked, but I also like that the team works and doesn't work at the same time. Here you really get the feeling that these are people. Then there's Arnold, who still has it, even if he looks rather ridiculous in some scenes. The ending is properly cool, though.
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I didn't really enjoy it. Action movies about special ops are one of my least favourites because even here we don't get to build any kind of relationship with the characters, so we have absolutely no sympathy for someone who dies. There is plenty of blood, but that's it, it felt like a cheap video movie at times. A generic story, little action, Arnie didn't work for me here, and at times it’s boring, so average. 55%.
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An above average film, albeit by the skin of its teeth. Its plot is reminiscent of any of Steven Seagal's new scary movies, but the execution is infinitely better in every aspect, Arnold Schwarzenegger still knows how to give those tough looks, and the ending is especially good. The only thing that spoiled my experience was the terrible Czech dubbing (the DVD didn't come out and I had to record Sabotage from TV like in the good old days of VHS), whose actors didn't even try to put the right words in their mouths. Three and a half.
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