Sabotage

For those of you wondering what might happen when an Agatha Christie novel is mashed up with an ultraviolent contemporary action thriller, Sabotage provides the answer.

That title also seems somewhat misappropriated in this latest vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger, which features the requisite chase scenes, shootouts and explosions on its checklist of cliches.

It doesn’t take long to figure out the general direction of the story in which Schwarzenegger stars as Breacher, the head of a special operations unit of the Drug Enforcement Agency, whose crew tries to reward itself for all of its dangerous missions by robbing $10 million from a drug cartel safe house. But the scheme goes awry, and the fallout causes John to lose the trust of his boss (Martin Donovan).

An investigation clears the unit, allowing them to reunite. But then there’s the matter of the missing money, which leads to a lot of internal finger-pointing among John’s colleagues — with cool nicknames including Monster (Sam Worthington), Sugar (Terrence Howard), Neck (Josh Holloway), Lizzy (Mireille Enos) and Grinder (Joe Manganiello) — who start being eliminated one by one under mysterious circumstances.

Some of this seems like familiar territory for director David Ayer (End of Watch), who co-wrote the script with Skip Woods (A Good Day to Die Hard). They again explore the darker side of authority and characters who blur the line between heroes and villains. However, it’s less compelling when the twists are obvious and the story lacks an emotional anchor, and the every female character is treated with such contempt.

Schwarzenegger still exudes plenty of action-hero charisma even if he takes his task a little too seriously here. Give him credit for doing more than just barking out orders and puffing on cigars, as he still handles the more rigorous physical aspects of the role just fine.

While the action sequences are generally standard, perhaps the best aspect of the film is the convincing loyalty and camaraderie between John and his crew, even if they overdo it with the macho frat-house atmosphere and abundant one-liners about urination and male genitalia.

At any rate, by the final half-hour, the body count becomes completely gratuitous and Sabotage turns into a bloody mess in more ways than one.

Rated R, 109 minutes.