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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

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Tag Archives: David Ayer

Bright (2017)

23 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, David Ayer, Drama, Edgar Ramirez, Elves, Fantasy, Joel Edgerton, Lucy Fry, Magic wand, Noomi Rapace, Orcs, Review, Thriller, Will Smith

D: David Ayer / 118m

Cast: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry, Edgar Ramírez, Veronica Ngo, Alex Meraz, Happy Anderson, Ike Barinholtz, Dawn Olivieri, Matt Gerald, Margaret Cho, Joseph Piccuirro, Brad William Henke, Jay Hernandez, Enrique Murciano

And so, like the cinematic equivalent of a pair of socks (but for the same foot), we have Bright, the latest Netflix original to grace the small screen and remind us that not all the bad movies get a cinema release. Penned by Max Landis and directed by David Ayer, this lumpen mix of fantasy and crime arrives D.O.A. before it’s even started, and not once during its near-on two hour run time, shows any sign that it can be resurrected (unlike one of its characters). If you have to see this movie, then be warned: it’s as if Alien Nation (1988) never happened.

Mismatched buddy cop movies have been around for some time now, but rarely have they been as ill-advised and as poorly constructed as this movie. Bright takes a great central conceit – what if magic was real and fantasy creatures co-existed with us in some alternate reality? – and then keeps on reminding the viewer that beyond this central conceit, the script has no idea what to do with it other than to make an action thriller out of it, and one that rarely makes any coherent sense. There’s a Dark Lord who was vanquished two thousand years ago, and now a bad elf, Leilah (Rapace), wants to use one of three magic wands to bring the Dark Lord back so he can kill billions of people and enslave the rest. (As wth most fantasy movies where there’s a Big Bad who just wants to destroy everything, there’s no actual reason given as to why they want to do all this, or why they have followers who can’t see this isn’t actually a good thing.) Our heroes are a couple of L.A. cops, the mismatched buddies of this paragraph’s first sentence. One is Daryl Ward (Smith), a long-serving officer about to resume active duty after being shot, and the other is his partner, Nick Jakoby (Edgerton), the first and only Orc to become a police officer.

It won’t surprise anyone that Nick being an Orc gives rise to notions of racism, both casual and institutional, and the movie does spend some time examining this particular theme, but it does so in such a clumsy, ham-fisted way that it’s almost embarrassing. The Orc population primarily lives in ghetto-ised areas, while the Elves have their own exclusive part of town, are rich and influential, and apparently exist to go boutique shopping (there are fairies too but they’re not important). Both keep out of each other’s way, both have sketchily drawn histories, and there’s no attempt to explain how they and humans came to be co-existing with each other, or how long it’s been going on. Landis and Ayer aren’t interested in creating a credible world that makes any sense, and that’s evident by the way in which the movie throws the viewer in at the deep end and then wanders off without throwing them a lifeline. Instead, Ward and Nick are soon running from everyone in their efforts to keep Leilah’s magic wand – stolen by good elf Tikka (Fry) – from ending up in the wrong hands. Corrupt cops want it, a local gang wants it, Leilah and two of her followers (Ngo, Meraz) want it, and an FBI agent, Kandomere (Ramirez), wants it as well. What’s a couple of increasingly isolated police officers to do?

The answer is to wait until the movie delivers on a piece of information a minor character imparts near the beginning. The title refers to someone who can wield a magic wand – usually an elf – but who can also be human, even though the odds are (unsurprisingly) astronomical. With this fairly important tidbit introduced into the narrative, and in such a way as to draw direct attention to it, the ending of the movie is set up, and any tension intended to keep viewers on the edge of their seats wondering how Leilah can be defeated, is abandoned. Landis and Ayer know what’s going to happen, the viewer knows what’s going to happen, and if you took a straw poll of a hundred random strangers, they’d all know too. This means wading through a number of encounters that offer a succession of action beats – one inside a convenience store is at least well choreographed – interspersed with scenes that are meant to reveal more about the characters. Sadly, much of this is tedious to watch and dramatically redundant. This is fantasy by numbers, and Landis’s script doesn’t bring anything new to the table, just stock characters and a predictable scenario.

It’s concerning that Landis thinks of this movie as his “Star Wars“, and that Ayer has said (in response to a negative review) that “it’s a big fun movie”. Landis needs to rethink his opinion, and Ayer needs to reflect on what aspects could be regarded as “fun”. Following on so soon after the debacle that was Suicide Squad (2016), Ayer should be persuaded to avoid big budget fantasy spectacles and maybe concentrate on smaller, more personal movies or return to making gritty, immediate cop thrillers such as End of Watch (2012). Equally, Landis should forget about high concept screenplays and maybe write some more of the quirky, low budget stuff that actually has an impact, such as Mr. Right (2015). The trap that both men have fallen into is in believing that audiences will just accept what they’re being shown, and will be more than happy with the numerous action scenes that bulk out the movie. But when everything seems either laboured or ignored or both, audiences will take that on board, and they will be disappointed.

The performances are adequate, with Edgerton coming away with a degree of kudos for his portrayal of Nick, but for Smith this is another misfire in what seems to be a consistent series of misfires stretching all the way back to Men in Black 3 (2012). Whether you believe his judgment has been affected in some way, and that his choice of projects over the last five years has made him appear “off his game”, what remains is a portrayal here that doesn’t resonate in the way that a Will Smith performance used to. There isn’t the energy or the knowing humour that we’ve come to expect in the past; instead it’s another occasion where his presence is almost a guarantee of disappointment. Rapace has even less chance of making an impact, reduced as she is to playing generic villain of the month, while the rest of the cast make up the numbers in a variety of unassuming and unaffecting ways. It all looks gloomy and portentous, but not in a good way, and there are moments where any good intentions or creative ideas appear to have been jettisoned in favour of sticking to Landis’s screenplay. There’s a great movie to be made from the idea of fantasy creatures inhabiting the same world as humans, and living side by side with us, but unfortunately, Bright isn’t it.

Rating: 3/10 – with a sequel already greenlit and Smith set to return, the notion that Netflix have seen all they need to see in relation to Bright is quite a worrying development, especially as there’s nothing here to warrant continuing Ward or Nick’s story; loud, dumb, and superficially entertaining, it’s a movie that lacks heart and soul and a sense of wonder at the world it’s seeking to show, and which quickly descends into a melee of rote situations and trite outcomes.

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Suicide Squad (2016)

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Action, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Amanda Waller, Arkham Asylum, Belle Reve, Captain Boomerang, David Ayer, DC Universe, Deadshot, Drama, El Diablo, Enchantress, Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney, Jared Leto, Jay Hernandez, Joel Kinnaman, Killer Croc, Margot Robbie, Midway City, Review, Rick Flag, Task Force X, The Joker, Villains, Viola Davis, Warner Bros., Will Smith

Suicide Squad

D: David Ayer / 123m

Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Scott Eastwood, Adam Beach, Ike Barinholtz, David Harbour, Common, Alain Chanoine, Ben Affleck, Ezra Miller

At the beginning of 2016, DC Comics fans had two movies to look forward to in the coming year: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Anticipation for both these movies was almost stratospherically high. But Batman v Superman proved to be a messy affair that lacked coherence and couldn’t even give audiences a rousing showdown between the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel. Critically pounded, and causing a division between fans that in some quarters got way too heated, the movie fell short of making a billion dollars at the box office, and was judged a disappointment. Earlier this month, an extended cut of the film was released on home video, and though the extra footage tidied up a few things left adrift in the theatrical cut, the general consensus was that the additional thirty minutes didn’t make it a better movie.

Fans quickly turned their attention to Suicide Squad to save the day, and the hype began all over again. In development since 2009, the movie arrives now with all the fanfare of a Second Coming. Promoted and advertised and pushed for all it’s worth (IMAX screenings feature a new, Suicide Squad-inspired countdown that’s a nice but unnecessary gimmick), this was Warner Bros.’ chance to prove that they were listening when critics and fans alike said Batman v Superman was too dark and sombre. Director David Ayer promised there would be humour, and the tone would be lighter. Has he delivered? Predictably, the answer is yes and no.

Suicide Squad - scene1

Suicide Squad is, first and foremost, just as messy as it’s DC Extended Universe predecessor. Its plotting is murky and frustratingly lacking in detail, character motivations vary wildly (sometimes in the same scene), there’s the usual over-reliance on a surfeit of destruction-porn, and no one to root for or care about, even though the script does try its best to make Deadshot (Smith) and El Diablo (Hernandez) at least halfway sympathetic. What fun there is to be had can be found in the opening twenty minutes as we’re introduced to each member of the squad, from the assassin who never misses with a gun, Deadshot, to meta-humans such as Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and El Diablo, wicked witch Enchantress (Delevingne) and her human host June Moone (also Delevingne), thief extraordinaire Captain Boomerang (Courtney), and brain-fried Daddy’s Lil Monster, Harley Quinn (Robbie). Watching these characters interact with and defy authority at every turn gives hope to the direction the movie is heading in, but that hope is short-lived.

Assembled by government spook Amanda Waller (Davis), the squad is a fail-safe option if someone were to come along with Superman’s abilities and use them for evil. With explosive devices implanted in their necks to stop them absconding, the squad, led by Colonel Rick Flag (Kinnaman), are tasked with a mission in Midway City when Enchantress and her brother Incubus (Chanoine) begin building a machine that will destroy all other weapons on the planet and – well, this is one of those plot points that sounds great but is actually quite lame and badly thought out. With Flag and the squad further augmented by expert swordswoman Katana (Fukuhara), escape specialist Slipknot (Beach), and two teams of soldiers, they venture into the randomly destroyed city in search of a High Value Target to rescue. But Waller and Flag have been less than honest about the mission, and the squad must decide if working together is a more appropriate way forward than going their own ways.

Suicide Squad - scene2

It’s clear from the start that Suicide Squad wants to be edgy and smart, caustic and irreverent, and provide a great time for its audience. But as the movie progresses, and once the introductions are over, it soon becomes clear that these so-called supervillains are going to be trapped by the demands of a script that wants to show that, deep down, they’re all really good guys at heart. As a result, this leads to a watering down of the original concept – Worst.Heroes.Ever. – that should be revised to read Best.Antiheroes.Ever. Yes, they’re largely antisocial, and yes they have their issues with authority, and yes they haven’t got a problem with killing people (mostly), but by the end they’ve all bonded and are like one big happy dysfunctional family. It’s enough to tug at the heart strings.

And then there’s the Joker (Leto). Much has been made of Leto’s insistence on staying in character for the duration of the shoot – Smith has quipped that he didn’t meet Leto until after filming was completed – and the Joker’s heavily tattooed look. But it’s all immaterial as Leto is on screen for around fifteen to twenty minutes in total, in a subplot that sees him try to rescue Harley Quinn from being part of the squad. With the Joker reduced to a supporting role it’s hard to qualify Leto’s performance. Yes it’s mannered, heavily so, and completely different from any previous interpretations, but the script depicts him as a lunatic gangster figure rather than the Clown Prince of Chaos. The character has room for development, then, but right now his need to rescue Quinn keeps him working to a standard plotline and any antic diversions seem forced.

Suicide Squad - scene3

In what is fast becoming the one area in which Warner Bros. seems unable to act on the recommendations of others, Suicide Squad ramps up the destruction on offer, with endless gunfights and property devastation the order of the day. It’s all accompanied by one of recent cinema’s more overwhelming and intrusive scores (courtesy of Steven Price), a blaring cacophony of dramatic musical cues and declamatory passages that reinforce just how much the movie is like being hit repeatedly over the head (and by Harley Quinn’s mallet at that). Ayer can’t stop things from getting too overwrought in the movie’s final half hour, and inevitably any subtlety is made to hide in the shadows where it can’t interfere with anything.

Against all this the cast do their best, with Smith atoning for some recent poor choices by making Deadshot likeable and charismatic. Robbie has the most fun, and is the most fun to watch, but after a while the chirpy attitude and cheesy wisecracks begin to grate, and Ayer does away with any development the character has made as if it never happened, leaving her no different from how she was at the start. Davis essays the real villain of the piece, but once that particular “surprise” is established the character stops being interesting, as does her motivation, and she’s wisely sidelined. Kinnaman does stolid with ease but fails to make Flag memorable, while Hernandez makes El Diablo a surprisingly well-rounded character, less of a supervillain, and more Hulk-like in terms of his anger issues.

The movie is further hampered by Ayer’s insistence on giving the movie a noir feel instead of a comic book feel, and John Gilroy’s haphazard, wayward approach to the editing. Other odd moments/decisions stand out: Deadshot looking like a pimp when he’s out with his daughter; Enchantress swaying like a woman trying to keep up an invisible hula hoop; several flashbacks that slow the movie’s rhythm; a scene where El Diablo reveals a tragic consequence to his ability that feels out of place; and an origin story for Quinn that involves falling into a chemical vat for the sake of it.

Rating: 5/10 – slightly better than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (but only slightly), Suicide Squad still has enough problems to stop it from becoming the first DC Extended Universe movie to overcome the series’ usual pitfalls; shedding its claim to being edgy and different with every minute that passes, the movie is further proof that Warner Bros. and DC need to work harder on their game plan, and that copying Marvel isn’t necessarily the right idea.

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Fury (2014)

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Brad Pitt, David Ayer, Drama, Germany, Jon Bernthal, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Review, Shia LaBeouf, Tanks, US Army, World War II

Fury

D: David Ayer / 134m

Cast: Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, Jim Parrack, Brad William Henke, Kevin Vance, Xavier Samuel, Anamaria Marinca, Alicia von Rittberg

April 1945, Germany.  A battered, disabled tank lies amidst the carnage of a recently fought battle.  Its men – Collier (Pitt), Swan (LaBeouf), Garcia (Peña), and Travis (Bernthal) – are battle-hardened and weary but they have an unshakeable bond.  Under Collier’s tough, uncompromising leadership they’ve survived countless skirmishes, encounters and battles.  Now, with the war nearing its end, they are all looking forward to peacetime.

Travis gets their tank – named Fury – moving again and they head back to base.  There, much to Collier’s disgust, they are assigned a new driver/gunner, Ellison (Lerman); Collier is disgusted because Ellison is too young, he’s only been in the Army for eight weeks and he knows nothing about tanks.  Introduced to the rest of the crew, Ellison is treated with disdain and told to take a bucket of hot water and clean out the inside of the tank.  When he does, he finds the partial remains of the previous driver/gunner.  Meanwhile, Collier and three other tank commanders are given a mission to meet up with Baker Company and from there take over a small town.

On the way to the rendezvous, Ellison’s inexperience causes the death of several men including the lieutenant (Samuel) who was leading them.  Now led by Collier, the convoy carries on and they meet up with Baker Company and their commanding officer, Captain Waggoner (Isaacs).  Before seizing the town, Waggoner needs the tanks to flush out a German unit that has several dozen US troops pinned down in a field.  Fury and the other tanks get the job done, but Ellison’s inexperience nearly causes more casualties.  When the fight is over, Collier tries to make Ellison kill a captured German soldier, putting a gun in his hand and telling him to “do his job”, which is to kill Nazis.  Ellison refuses but Collier puts his hand over the young man’s hand and pulls the trigger.  Ellison is horrified by it all but it proves to be a turning point, and when the nearby town is taken he is less nervous and is able to despatch the Germans without feeling too sick or nervous.

With the town taken, Collier and Ellison investigate a building where they’ve seen a woman peering from a window.  They find the woman, Irma (Marinca) and her niece Emma (Rittberg).  While Collier washes up, Ellison takes Emma into the bedroom and clearly attracted to each other, they make love.  Later, while the four are about to have a meal, the rest of Fury’s crew barge in and spoil things, before orders are received to report to Captain Waggoner.  He tells Collier and the other tank commanders that there is a nearby crossroads that needs holding because of a large German troop movement that’s heading in that direction.  But on their way there, the tanks find themselves under attack crossing a large field, and very soon the whole mission is in danger of failing.

Fury - scene

After the less than impressive Sabotage (2014), writer/director Ayer returns with a movie that paints a portrait of extreme heroism under one of the most difficult of environments, and with a keen eye for detail that grounds both the action and the characters.  It’s a challenging piece of moviemaking and provides a reminder of just how awful tank warfare could be.

And yet, Fury is a curious mix of the heroic and the mundane.  Ayer’s script paints each man as a distinct individual – Collier as noted above, Swan as religiously minded, Garcia as more carnally oriented, Travis as a bigoted animal, Ellison as a callow liability (at first) – but it doesn’t take the time to explore or delve into those characters any further than those broad brush strokes allow.  Collier speaks fluent German but the reason for this is never revealed, leaving the audience wondering if it’s part of a back story that was excised from the final script, or if it’s just a case of Screenwriting Expediency 101, a way to keep the crew ahead of the Germans without them having to work too hard to get there.  Ellison is the only character who gets a story arc, and while his initial shock is well presented, though predictable given his introduction, when he does take to killing Nazis, all of a sudden he’s enjoying it.  The change in attitude is too quick, and is an example of Ayer’s script downplaying motivation in favour of the next big action sequence.

The extended sequence in the apartment of Irma and Emma is another case in point where Ayer seems to be scratching the surface of an issue, highlighting the essential need, even in wartime, for people to hold on to their innate humanity.  Collier and Ellison treat both women with the utmost respect but when the rest of the crew bundles in creating tension around the table and being hostile and objectionable, the tone shifts uncomfortably and Travis in particular is allowed to behave as if social manners were alien to him (he later apologises to Ellison but it’s not in the least convincing – if it were to happen in real life it would appear forced and contrived).  The whole sequence becomes uneven and any message that Ayer was aiming for becomes lost in the telling.  He then adds a layer of tragedy that speaks of the callous nature of war but which, for the viewer, will only come across as an unnecessary twist in the tale.

With so many apparent flaws in the screenplay, and with its shifting tone proving hard to pin down, Fury presents a problem for the viewer in that it’s a movie that attempts to take a snapshot of one part of what happened in World War II and to make it resonate beyond that snapshot.  This is almost a timepiece, a movie where the overall picture is lost in the mist and shadow that permeates the fields and roads that the tanks travel through.  It’s not a bad approach as such, but without that wider focus, Fury limits itself to being solely about the men inside a tank, and with no real effort to expand on their characters, it becomes a snapshot with no context.

Screenplay issues notwithstanding, the movie is on firmer ground with its action scenes, making the tank skirmishes urgent and vital, and deftly playing up the cramped conditions under which the crew operate, making a virtue of the economy of movement needed to load and fire the shells (try and count how many times we see Swan’s foot press down on the firing pedal).  These scenes are impressively shot and edited together by Roman Vasyanov, and Jay Cassidy and Dody Dorn respectively, and offer a few heart-stopping moments along the way.  But Ayer then settles for a final showdown between Fury and the advancing German troops that lifts action beats from every direct-to-video war movie you’ve ever seen, and which sacrifices credibility for the kind of careless heroics that undermines (and overturns) everything that’s gone before.

Fury - scene2

On the whole, Fury isn’t a bad movie per se, it’s sadly a movie that never quite realises its full potential.  It does feature some very good performances however, and these raise up the movie when it most needs it.  Pitt is as intense and commanding as ever, dominating every scene he’s in and making it difficult for the audience to concentrate on anyone else.  But matching him – thankfully – is Lerman, putting in a career best performance that quickly obliterates any embarrassing memories of him in the Percy Jackson movies or The Three Musketeers (2011).  As Ellison grows up on screen so too does Lerman, showing a range and a conviction that’s eluded him up until now.  It’s a pleasure to watch him match the likes of Pitt and his co-stars, all actors who, on their day, can impress beyond all expectations.  (Well, maybe not LaBeouf, but here he’s tolerable and seems required to stare fixedly at Pitt for most of the movie, but good luck with working out what emotion he’s meant to be feeling.)

Ayer is a talented individual, and he’s written some great scripts over the last fifteen years; he’s also making a name for himself as a director as well, but to date End of Watch (2012) remains his most fully realised project.  Fury will definitely attract audiences initially but there’s a sense that, ironically, it won’t have “legs”.  Which is a shame, as the movie could have been so much better had Ayer been more rigorous with his script.

Rating: 7/10 – slightly better than average but with enough problems to make viewing the movie more disappointing than not, Fury bristles with energy during its action scenes but otherwise is sluggish; one to see on the big screen though, and with one’s expectations firmly kept in check.

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Sabotage (2014)

28 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Action, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Crime, David Ayer, DEA agents, Drugs cartel, Murder, Olivia Williams, Review, Robbery, Sam Worthington, Stolen money

sabotage_c82f99af

D: David Ayer / 109m

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Olivia Williams, Terrence Howard, Mireille Enos, Joe Manganiello, Harold Perrineau, Josh Holloway, Max Martini, Kevin Vance, Martin Donovan

When a DEA task force led by veteran John “Breacher” Wharton takes down a house used by a Mexican drugs cartel, it becomes clear they have a more primary mission their superiors know nothing about: to steal $10 million of the cartel’s money.  Hiding the money in the sewers to be collected later, “Breacher” and his team – “Monster” (Worthington), “Grinder” (Manganiello), “Sugar” (Howard), “Neck” (Holloway), “Pyro” (Martini), “Tripod” (Vance), and Lizzy (Enos) – are soon under investigation by Internal Affairs on suspicion of stealing the money, but when they go to collect it, they find it’s gone.  Six months later, and with IA having found no evidence to prove they took the money, “Breacher” and his team are reinstated.

Shortly after, one of the team is killed when his trailer is hit by a train (it was moved onto the tracks while he was unconscious).  The death is investigated by Detective Caroline Brentwood (Williams) and her partner Darius Jackson (Perrineau).  Attempting to interview the team proves fruitless, and Brentwood enlists “Breacher”‘s help in talking to them.  They visit one of the team, only to find he’s been killed as well, and in a way that suggests the Mexican drugs cartel is targeting them in retaliation for stealing the money.  They find a third member of the team murdered also, along with clear evidence that he was killed by the cartel, one of whom they find dead nearby.  Jackson traces the dead man’s mobile phone to an apartment block; he and Brentwood take a squad there to arrest them but “Breacher” and the remainder of his team get there first and kill the men they find there, only to discover they aren’t the cartel’s hit squad.  When the bodies of the cartel hit squad are found a short time after, and it becomes clear they couldn’t have committed the first two murders, “Breacher” realises it’s one of his team that is picking them off one by one.

Things quickly unravel.  One of the team tells Brentwood about the money, and is subsequently murdered while talking to her and “Breacher”.  With no other possibilities as to the murderer’s identity, “Breacher” agrees to a meeting with them.  In the ensuing showdown, the whereabouts of the money is revealed and the motive for its theft becomes clear.

Sabotage (2014) - scene

Aiming for the kind of contemporary, gritty, urgent, down and dirty feel achieved in two of Ayer’s other outings as a writer – Training Day (2001) and End of Watch (2012) – Sabotage starts promisingly enough with a well-staged assault on the cartel house but then stumbles badly with its decision to delay the ensuing action for six months.  It doesn’t make sense that the cartel would wait that long to make their reprisals, nor that the killer within the team – especially when their motive is revealed – would also wait so long to target their teammates.  There’s also the matter of the back story involving “Breacher” that is revealed halfway through, which, once out in the open, muddies the waters even further.  With three separate ways of approaching the murders, and the reasons for them, Ayer’s script does its best to keep things as straightforward as possible, but there are too many times when narrative complexity is abandoned for moving the story along quickly to the next action sequence.  This leads to some lapses in logic that also weaken proceedings, such as Brentwood jumping into bed with “Breacher” at the drop of a hat, and “Breacher” allowing one of his team to have a drug problem, and there’s an air of convenience throughout.

Continuing his return to the big screen, Schwarzenegger puts in a grizzled performance that still relies on his trademark squint and square-jawed impassivity.  He’s the rock that anchors the movie but he doesn’t bring anything new to the table, and coasts on his physical presence, leaving the emoting to the rest of the cast (it’s still good to have him back though).  The casting of Williams is an interesting choice but she’s hampered by having to provide “Breacher” with a potential love interest, as well as trying to be a bad-ass detective.  From the team, Worthington and Enos fare best, while Holloway, whose career post-Lost seems to consist of uninspiring cameo turns, is forgettable in a role that appears written as one-dimensional.  Howard is sidelined for much of the movie, and Perrineau is the kind of peppy partner who’s so annoying you wonder why Brentwood hasn’t already shot him for the peace and quiet.

What hampers the movie most, though, is the curiously flat feel it has.  Everything happens at the same pitch, with little or no attempt to make even the action scenes tense or exciting, and the drama is disappointing for being so casually handled.  With Ayer’s direction largely AWOL, his and Skip Woods’ script is left to fend for itself, and its limitations are cruelly highlighted as a result.  By the time we get to the movie’s epilogue – a long time coming in and of itself – the viewer is left wondering what was the point.

Rating: 5/10 – not quite as terrible as it looks, Sabotage is nevertheless a serious letdown given the talent involved; one for fans of Ah-nold, and best viewed as an undemanding Saturday night/beer and a takeaway movie.

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Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)

Australian movie blog - like Margaret and David, just a little younger

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