The former Governor of California has “buy your tickets now” for the new film Sabotage on his website
Ya gotta love the sheer capitalism of it. And you’ll be hard pressed to count the bullets and see if there are more fired in Sabotage than in Bruce Willis 2013 new sequel in his Die Hard series, A Good Day to Die Hard
Director David Ayer is far from convincing when he says in the Sabotage trailer “I was really intrigued by the idea of Arnold playing a very complex character in a role unlike any he’s done before. Well he certainly isn’t Conan here but Raw Deal, Running Man, Red Heat – where the plot concerns, as succinctly put by IMDB “… a cocky Chicago police detective (who) is sent to Chicago to apprehend a Georgian drug lord who killed his partner and fled the country. like, have you heard that one before? If not, you will now.
Arnold opens the film not looking like Arnold, but more like a tired old man who was doing something else for a living (say, being Governor…) watching a video of a woman being tortured to death by some drug lord. The woman happens to be the Arnie character’s wife, Mrs. John “Breacher” Wharton.
Now, go back to what director Ayer said (above) and look at the plot of 2002’s Collateral Damage:
The film tells the story of Los Angeles firefighter, Gordon Brewer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who looks to avenge his son and wife’s death at the hands of a guerrilla commando, by traveling to Colombia and facing his family killers. Which is more than a bit like the theme here. It’s actually kind of a reboot, Golly, gee, how “Unlike any role he’s played before.”
Catherine Dyer gets to die hard multiple times (in the snuff video from the drug cartel) as Karen Wharton, while son Jacob Wharton(Patrick Johnson from TV’s Necessary Roughness) also gets eliminated.
See if actor Patrick Johnson (who, as stated, plays Arnie’s son in the movie) looks anything like the son of Arnie & Maria Shriver, Patrick Schwarzenegger. He does.
Sabotage contains a huge cast that has to wear name tags (not kidding you) so that the viewer gets some character development before they all get iced It’s an Arnie Schwarzenegger exercise in excess. He looks a lot older, has some good one-liners, of course, and it is much like everything he’s ever done, only with lots of blood, lots and lots of blood. You could call this Predator meets Friday the Thirteenth.
Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com, Gatehouse Media, Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal, and a variety of other media outlets. Joe also produces and hosts Visual Radio, a seventeen year old variety show on cable TV which has interviewed Jodie Foster, director/screenwriter David Koepp, Michael Moore, John Cena, comics/actors Margaret Cho, Gilbert Gottfried, Gallagher, musicians Mark Farner and Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad, Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals, political commentator Bill Press and hundreds of other personalities.
