A director who carved out his reputation in the realm of gritty, hard-boiled crime thrillers partnering up with one of the industry’s most beloved action icons to put a bullet-riddled spin on an Agatha Christie story sounds so insane that it should have been awesome. Unfortunately for all involved, 2014’s Sabotage was anything but.
For the first part of his career, David Ayer knew exactly what his wheelhouse was and refused to move outside of it, with the dark and dingy tale of twisted morality and excessive violence sitting neatly alongside his previous works including Training Day, Harsh Times, Street Kings, and End of Watch.
Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s post-political comeback had seen him try his hand at broadening his acting horizons, so the role of a grizzled – but massively corrupt – DEA agent sounded enticing on paper. Throw in the fact Sabotage was inspired by Christie’s 1939 novel And Then There Were None, and the curiosity factor was raised to intoxicating levels.
And yet, the film cratered horrendously at the box office after recouping a mere $22 million theaters on production costs of $35 million, while a 22 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and 36 percent user rating highlighted that the barbarically brutal descent into double-crossing and deceit was dead on arrival.
Whodunnits remain all the rage, though, so maybe that’s why Sabotage has shrugged off its terrible reputation to gun down a top spot on streaming. Per FlixPatrol, the unlikely caper has unloaded a full clip on the Starz most-watched charts, even if it doesn’t quite work as a companion piece to Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot mysteries.