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Sabotage brings Arnold Schwarzenegger back to the screen as Breacher, the leader of a DEA task force who deal with the bad guys by ‘breaching’ their abodes to take them down. They’re not strictly on the level, though, as they’re as bent as a nine-bob note and they syphon off the cream of a drug dealer’s money stash for themselves, but then find they’ve been double crossed, so not only are they out of pocket but they’re also accused of theft. Who in the DEA sold them out? That’s what the team is thinking.
Stuck in a desk job while an investigation is carried out, it would be a very boring film if all you did was spend two hours watching Arnie number-crunch at a computer when you’d rather see him bone-crunch instead. Hence, it’s not long before he’s back out with his team, clearly for the purposes of moving the plot along rather than any sense of realism.
However, once the band has been got back together – who also have similar verb-like names, such as Pyro, Grinder and Smoke – and they’re out at work again, someone starts bumping them off, one by one, but who is the question. Oddly, one of them is killed by having their Winnebago towed onto a railway track during the night while they sleep. However, surely any train would even at least try to slow down rather than pile into them and keep going? Then again, whenever did Arnie films have any sense of believability about them?
The FBI also join in the hunt, alby led by Brit Olivia Williams as Caroline, with Harold Perrineau turning up all too briefly as her partner, Jackson.
Sabotage has some great action and a number of one-liners and it’s certainly an engaging way of spending two hours, and when the bullets start flying, there was so much blood splatter and head-shots that this must’ve been a borderline 15/18-rating. There’s also a silly car chase where, giving no spoilers, someone’s in the boot shooting out as it spins fast round corners. They’re not strapped in, so how the hell don’t they fly out? Oh, see the believability thing above…
Amusingly, there are some pictures up in Breacher’s house showing him with former presidents Reagan, Clinton, plus current incumbent Obama. Obviously, these were Arnie’s own pictures, but when Caroline asks him, “Are you kind of a big deal?”, he replies, “I’ve been around.”
And did anyone get the “You enjoy your cups” quip? I assumed it was something rude but couldn’t figure it out.
Oh, and note to the cast and crew behind The Expendables 3 – when people get hit by bullets, they bleed a lot. Remember that next time you make a movie, and don’t cut it down for a 12A, since even a 15-cert can deliver these goods. See examples: Sabotage and, hey, The Expendables 2!
Arnie is also coming back to the screen next summer as his biggest role in Terminator: Genisys.
Unfortuntely, he also seems to have pencilled in Triplets. Yes, a sequel to Twins. Oh dear.
Go to page 2 for the presentation and the extras.
The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 theatrical ratio and there’s no issues with the print at all, as you’d expect from a modern film, with everything onscreen sharp and details. For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 50″ Plasma screen with a Samsung BDP1500 player.
Audio-wise, while the sound is in the usual DTS 5.1, there’s gunfire and the occasional explosion going on as you’d expect. It isn’t a reference disc, but it does exactly what an action/thriller need to do.
The extras are as follows, and are in HD but are not subtitled:
- Making Sabotage (8:26): A short but sweet making-of with clips mixed with chat from key cast and crew members. No alarms and no surprises, here.
- Alternate Endings (9:01): A whole new ending, and sort-of in two parts here, the second one shorter than the first because it shows the alternate ending’s alternate ending… if that makes sense. I rather like the one used in the main feature, although it’s great to have these alternate ones included here.
- Deleted Scenes (16:44): 8 scenes of deleted and alternate scenes, four of which, spread throughout, which build more on Caroline’s character as she looks into another case, and I can see why they were cut as it would slow down the pace of the film although it’s nice to have them included.
I think No.4 in this set of 8 (not the fourth in the aforementioned quartet) would make for a nice addition, but the rest are worth a look and I wouldn’t put them back in as it would slow the main film down.
There are subtitles in English only, a miserly 12 chapters – the same figure a lot of other distributors use these days, sadly, and the menu features a mostly static cover image, but with some clips behind the featured characters, all set to a brief piece of the theme music.
Sabotage is released on September 15th on Blu-ray and DVD, and click on the packshot for the full-size image.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
8 10 8 3 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 110 minutes
Studio: Lionsgate
Cat.no.: LGB95138
Year: 2014
Released: September 15th 2014
Chapters: 12
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.85:1
Disc Format: BD50
Director: David Ayer
Producers: David Ayer, Bill Block, Paul Hanson, Palak Patel and Ethan Smith
Screenplay: Skip Woods and David Ayer
Music: David Sardy
Cast:
John ‘Breacher’ Wharton: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Caroline: Olivia Williams
James ‘Monster’ Murray: Sam Worthington
Joe ‘Grinder’ Phillips: Joe Manganiello
Eddie ‘Neck’ Jordan: Josh Holloway
Julius ‘Sugar’ Edmonds: Terrence Howard
Tom ‘Pyro’ Roberts: Max Martini
Bryce ‘Tripod’ McNeely: Kevin Vance
‘Smoke’ Jennings: Mark Schlegel
Lizzy Murray: Mireille Enos
Jackson : Harold Perrineau
Floyd Demel: Martin Donovan
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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