It's The 80s All Over

Even though this is, technically, part of Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to acting, I didn't think I'd see old-school 80s one-liners in David Ayer's 'Sabotage', however, in the clip below, Arnie goes there. The line "Spend enough time on the job, the job bites back" comes straight out of that era. It's pure plastic, is all surface, but I'm thinking it has to be a nod to Schwarzenegger's glory days. Pure tongue-in-cheek. We're just joking. Over in a flash, don't worry. Now back to the regularly scheduled movie.

I refuse to belief Ayer, who wrote the script for 'Sabotage' with Skip Woods, would include this line without knowing exactly what he was doing. So, I'm not changing my mind. From what I've seen 'Sabotage' is, in all likelihood, is a very competently done action/suspense with a nicely thought out plot and performances that have more emotional density than you'd expect.

While they step in a little doo doo with that line, I think everyone was in on it. The acting (with the possible exception of Arnie's gravelly 'Don't make me pound you' voice) doesn't go full-80s schlock, and Olivia Williams' graceful technique pulls this one out of the fire.