Sabotage

You know, we've all seen a plethora of films involving drugs, drug busts, busting cartels and the violence behind them. Just in recent years we've seen "Savages", "End of Watch", "Training Day", "Street Kings", "2 Guns", "Safe House", "Contraband" and now we have "Sabotage".

This story involves John 'Breacher' Wharton (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the veteran DEA agent in charge of an elite squad. After effectively hiding 10 million in drug money during an epic bust, their plan falls apart when they return to the hiding place and discover that someone has swiped the cash. As the incident goes through an exhaustive investigation, everyone is suspended from duty. After authorities fail to bring any charges, Breacher starts retaining the group including James 'Monster' Murray (Sam Worthington), Joe 'Grinder' Phillips (Joe Manganiello), Eddie 'Neck' Jordan (Josh Holloway), Julius 'Sugar' Edmonds (Terence Howard), Tom 'Pyro' Roberts (Max Martini), Bryce 'Tripod' McNeely (Kevin Vance), 'Smoke' Jennings (Mark Schlegel) and Lizzy Murray (Mireille Enos), which has grown rusty and distrustful of each other during the long layoff. Soon, members of Breacher's crew start dying in gruesome fashion. As Breacher gets close to Caroline Brentwood (Olivia Williams), the police investigator put in charge of the case, Caroline eventually learns about a dark secret from Breacher's past. Soon the remaining members of the crew realize that one of them is responsible for the murders, and that same person probably has the cash as well.

Others to round out the cast are Ned Yousef as Dubai Money Launderer, Maurice Compte as Sapo, Martin Donovan as Floyd Demel, Michael Monks as ASAC Phelps, Nick Chacon as DEA sniper and Tim Ware as Stan Morris (DEA Interrogator #1).

This was realistically and intensely directed by David Ayer ("Harsh Times" '05, "Street Kings" '08, "End of Watch" '12). This was paced so well that one would think they are eavesdropping on the life of real DEA agent actually at work. It was written by Skip Woods and David Ayer and even though the grittiness was spot on, it definitely had places that were predictable. Even though you're witnessed to a plethora of gratuitous violence, understandably, it was still difficult to focus on all that was going on story wise. Believe me, I actually thought it would be more predictable, but there were twists and turns so as not to get bogged down with a lot of triteness.

This is obviously a guy flick with all the trappings that make it that way, so if you're a 18-34 year-old single male that loves adrenaline, explosiveness, the obligatory sexy girls, and the good guys overcoming the bad guys, you'll be in film heaven. For the rest of you, as stated before, this has enough different twists and turns to keep you interested if you can turn your eyes away from the rest.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                          Rated: R                             109mins.