Fish in a Barrel: Ranking the Five Worst Performances in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Sabotage”

http://youtu.be/sVOCbK3s8Yo Sabotage, the ultra-violent action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leader of a rogue group of DEA agents, recently was released on DVD and Video on Demand. I doubt you will be surprised when I tell you that it is a very bad movie. Even by action movie standards, which are admittedly very low compared to those of other genres, Sabotage is almost shockingly terrible. The plot is laughable, the dialogue is stilted, and what passes as the film’s major plot twist/reveal is so telegraphed that, if you can’t predict it within the first 10 minutes of the movie, you might want to make sure your house is thoroughly baby-proofed even if you don’t live with any children. The film is directed and co-written by David Ayer, the same guy who wrote Training Day, a fact that should forever erase any questions related to whether or not Denzel Washington is one of the best actors of our generation. Granted, Training Day was directed by Antoine Fuqua (who has since produced some pretty crappy movies himself — I’m looking at you, Olympus Has Fallen), but Washington created one of the most memorable characters of the early 2000s speaking words written by the same guy who wrote Sabotage, which features tough-guy dialogue as bad as you are ever likely to find in a major motion picture. In a movie filled with amazingly bad performances, it’s difficult to shine a light on Sabotage’s five worst. Difficult, but not impossible:   5. Arnold Schwarzenegger This should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen Arnie act before. The former Governor of California has never been known for his nuanced performances, but he’s really bad in Sabotage. Sure, the man is still built like a Mack Truck, and that’s commendable for a guy in his late-60s, but in a career filled with garbled lines and cheesy one-liners, Sabotage surely has to be in the conversation when it comes to listing Schwarzenegger’s worst acting jobs. If there is a bright spot, I suppose Schwarzenegger at least can rest easy knowing his performance wasn’t the movie’s worst, a statement that probably hasn’t been made many times when discussing which actor in a Schwarzenegger movie sucked the most.   4. Max Martini According to IMDB, Max Martini’s name really is Max Martini, which is awesome. He looks like an action star and has the resume to match, with previous roles in Pacific Rim, Captain Phillips, and Saving Private Ryan. Here he plays a character named Pyro, and honestly his performance isn’t really any worse than some of the other actors who didn’t make this list (including Joe Manganeillo, Josh Holloway, and Terrence Howard — all of whom are terrible in this movie, but not as bad as their cohorts), but one scene in particular sealed his fate. If you don’t want a completely obvious plot point in a third-rate action movie ruined for you, skip this next part. OK, still here? Good. There is a scene in the movie where Pyro wakes up drunk in his RV and relieves himself in the sink because I guess that’s what hardened members of the DEA’s special operations unit do. As he stumbles back to bed, he realizes someone has parked his house-on-wheels on some train tracks. He fumbles with the keys to start the RV, but can’t get it to turnover. Then he wrestles with the door, which seems to be locked from the outside. Now, all this time, the train is approaching, but it really doesn’t seem to be moving all that quickly. Still, after he jiggles the door a couple of times and realizes it’s locked, rather than trying to squeeze out a window or even moving to the very back of the RV (which, sure, would still be tossed around once the train hit, but would certainly absorb less impact than the dead-center where the locked door is located), he simply stands in front of the door and turns and screams at the oncoming train for, like, 30 seconds. Watching Martini run through all of his tough guy screams as the train slowly, but inevitably, makes its way towards the RV is so sad that I actually felt embarrassed for him.   3. Olivia Williams Williams is one of those actresses who is immediately recognizable, but you probably won’t be able to figure out why she looks so familiar. She has appeared in some well-regarded films such as The Sixth Sense and Rushmore, and she was very good in each. She is not, however, very good in Sabotage. Playing the lead investigator assigned to sniff around Arnie’s group of agro, drug-money stealing, DEA meatheads, Williams’ acting consists of alternately squinting or bugging-out her eyes to convey any and all emotions, and awkwardly delivering hard-boiled cop dialogue about as convincingly as a drunk teenager trying to tell a bouncer what birthdate is listed on his fake ID.   2. Sam Worthington Worthington is probably best known for his roles in Avatar, the dreadful Clash of the Titans reboots, and Terminator Salvation. While many of those movies were sub-par, he’s proven himself to be an above-average actor more than capable of leading a mindless action picture. Here, though, he’s nearly unrecognizable as Monster, the psycho with a soft-spot who sports a shiny dome and a braided, rat-tail goatee long enough to be a source of concern around paper shredders and bowls of soup. Worthington has two modes in Sabotage: talking very quietly when he’s serious, and growling and shaking like a maniac when he’s angry. Whether he’s barking like a rabid dog or speaking in tones barely audible to the human ear, he frequently slips in and out of his native Australian accent. The fact that it is so noticeable means the filmmakers had to be aware of it, but figured an American character randomly speaking like an Aussie throughout the movie was the least of their worries.   1. Mireille Enos Enos delivers the most cringe-inducing performance in Sabotage and it isn’t even close. Her character is supposed to be the loosest of the loose cannons: short-tempered, always looking for a fight, and the type of head-case who has never met a risk she didn’t immediately want to take. Her various personality flaws are compounded by the fact that she LOVES drugs — cocaine, pills, liquid meth. There are a few minor love stories in Sabotage, but by far, the greatest onscreen romance here is between Enos’ character and drugs. Whether the scene calls for her character to be high as a kite or dialed-in, half of her lines are delivered through clenched teeth and pursed lips, and the other half are punctuated by a bubbling, wild cackle most frequently associated with excited hyenas. Enos has done some great, understated work in the past, most notably as Sarah Linden in The Killing and as Brad Pitt’s rock-steady wife in World War Z, so I know she’s not a bad actress. But for whatever reason she decided to try something completely different for this role and, WOW, is it a disaster! I mean, I guess she can be commended for really going for it and swinging for the fences, but if more people had actually seen Sabotage (it reportedly only grossed $10 million in the U.S.), her performance would undoubtedly be mentioned alongside some of the all-time worst performances in movie history. (I know that last sentence sounds harsh and like a bit of an over-exaggeration, but go watch Sabotage and tell me if you disagree. I’m as prone to hyperbole as the next idiot who types words on the internet, but I assure you, if anything, I’m underselling how painful it is to watch Enos go down in flames.)   It’s always hard to determine who deserves the blame for a movie like Sabotage. Do you blame the actors for, you know, being so bad at acting? Or do you blame the director, in this case David Ayer, because someone had to yell “CUT!” at the end of each scene and decide that what was just shot was good enough to keep? It’s hard to tell, but I do know that I was really looking forward to Ayer’s next movie —Fury, the World War II dudes-in-a-tank drama staring Brad Pitt that opens later this year — but I’ve since lowered my expectations. Hopefully we’re not back here in three months discussing my latest article: “Just How Bad is Shia LaBeouf in ‘Fury?’” Oh, wait…     @TheSEShepherd