When Arnie Fucks You Over

A short critique of Schwarzeneggers Sabotage to fill your time while drinking a cup of Coffee Latte.

Saw this Schwarzenegger-vehicle on Blu Ray. Felt fucked over afterwards. Seems I was not the only one who felt that way: this 35-mill-dollar-vehicle became a worldwide 19-mill-dollar box-office-bomb.

The reason: This action-, mystery-, detective-genre mix is simply badly written. First of all the writers can't decide which genre should be the main one. So we are flipped around between mystery-, detective- and action-genre, missing all the story beats and leaving you with a shitload of action scenes, with raining bullets and blood galore. In between - nothing but boredom, with close-ups of Schwarzeneggers wrinkled face. Sorry, Arnie, Stallone's face is way better wrinkled. And then your heavy Austrian accent! Instead of letting your special ops DEA team make constantly jokes about it, I see only seriousness as the general tone of the movie and unreal characters straight out of a bad graphic novel. And you are from start the good guy, who in the end turns out to be the bad guy who was only out for revenge. Arnie, you not only fucked over your special ops team but also the audience.

Here is how I would have written this piece. First of all I would have made your character shady leaving the audience always wondering about your real goals. Then I would have concentrated on the investigation by police investigator Caroline Brentwood who is uncovering bits and pieces about your past, while the Mexican cartel is decimating your OC-team. So you have 2 enemies: the investigator who you can charm and mislead, and the deadly cartel guys who you have to fight with the rest of your team in bloody action scenes. And when in the end the investigator (and the audience) knows all about your past - the cartel killed your wife and son brutally -, we understand you only wanted revenge right from start; we feel there has to be a last brutal and bloody showdown, where you kill all the bad Mexican guys, being finally deadly wounded yourself.

I would not have begun with the cheezy torture video of your wife by cartel members, and your horrible reacting to it - the audience has no connection to the woman in the video being tortured -, but what a great ending if we saw it in the end, as the primary motivator behind your fuck-you-all-over-scheming!
I would have started with you and your special ops team riding in an armoured vehicle on your way to break into a fortified cartel-villa. But instead of some bad jokes of unreal characters, among them one about someone having farted, I would have started like this:

DEA agent 1: All right, who dropped ass.

DEA agent 2: It's always the one mentioning it first.

DEA agent 1: That's a childish reasoning.

BREACHER (Schwarzenegger), in disgust opening a window, with heavy Austrian accent: OK, this one hurts. Lets ask Nose (DEA agent 4, a tracker of Red Indian origin).

NOSE sniffs like a dog.

NOSE: I smell shit...

Everybody laughs.

DEA agent 1: No shit!

Everybody laughs.

NOSE: Quiet. I need to concentrate. (sniffs:) I smell venison and...

EVERYBODY: OK, Smoke, it was you. You had venison.

NOSE, still sniffing, while everybody expresses disgust: ... and a Burgundy.

SMOKE: All right, it was me, but it wasn't Burgundy, I tried an Austrian Zweigelt. Was quite a good combination. BTW, the Austrians have a very good wine culture! Ask Breacher.

DEA agent 2: Fuck the Austrians. That Lord of the Ring was one big pile of shit, smelling like your ass.

BREACHER: Lord of the Ring was shot in New Zealand. And Austria is not Australia, you fuckhead. And now concentrate on the mission. 2 minutes to breaching. Neck, you got the sniper?

NECK (sniper), on a hill: Still searching...
BREACHER: Hurry...
We see Neck's POV: view though crosshairs, with the cartel sniper finally popping into view.
NECK: Got him...
Through the cartels snipers crosshairs we see the armoured vehicle nearing the fence highspeed.

DEA boss, from a command centre in the US: OK, Breacher, as soon as you see a good spot to breach, you tell Neck. He then takes out the shooter.
BREACHER: Lizzy come in... 

Inside the villa, wild party. Lizzy sniffing a line, then exclaiming wildly: Wow, that one did it. 
Kisses wildly a drug boss.
LIZZY, addressing BREACHER: I can't hear you.
Drug boss: What are you talking about?
LIZZY: Let's go somewhere more quiet where I can hear you...
She takes drug boss by the hand who follows her to a bedroom. 
LIZZY: Come on, I can't hear you.
Boss is about to fuck her without a condom.

Neck takes out the cartels sniper. 

Breacher crashes though fence with armoured car.

Lizzy shoots the drug boss, then jumps out the window...

DEA boss, over ear plugs: Remember, don't take any money, just blow it up!

(The shit-talk-scene would have been a good introduction, because after they break into fortified cartel-villa they are in the basement where they steal 10 mill. dollars, which they pack and flush down the stinking shit-drain after having removed the very shit-dirty toilet.  Then they blow up the rest of the money, a 100 mill., stacked high on a pallet inside the cartel-villa.  In a Freudian sense money is anal, a pile of money is shit.)

Later they wade through the stinking sewer full of shit to gather the millions, which have mysteriously disappeared...

Etc.

Thus the audience would know that Breachers mission is only to hurt one special cartel by blowing up their money, but the ops team is stealing 10 mill. for themselves and possibly getting away with it.


Instead: we see after a cheezy video of torturing some well done action sequences leaving me wondering, wtf is going on?


Later into the movie the special ops team gets slaughtered one by one, by a different cartel, who even nails one team member to the ceiling, gutting him.  The way this is filmwise executed is horror genre.

Then I was just fed up, waiting for the next action scenes with bullets raining, blood spattering.

I never had a clue what was going on.

Only when the female investigator steps in the plot comes to motion...




So, I hope, the dear reader understands why I had to vent a little; and I assume he rode well on my train of thoughts while sipping his cup of Coffee Latte...

Since this terrible movie was Arnies baby, my advice to you, Arnie, from Austrian to Austrian: Get some knowledge of how the dramatic code works, then hire a good writer who knows the different genres and how to mix them and you will have a block buster.

Read John Truby's Anatomy of Story! It's an eye opener in many ways!