Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s full-time return to acting has been strange to say the least, in that it’s seen him head back to the well and suffer from the law of diminishing returns and a fair few box office bombs, but he’s also somehow still managed to deliver some of the better performances of his career.
Both of his recent Terminator performances in Genisys and Dark Fate underwhelmed, and his grand comeback vehicle The Last Stand flopped despite being an energetic and fun old-school actioner with neo-Western vibes. Escape Plan, meanwhile, was a solid hit, one that saw Arnold having a ball after finally co-starring with Sylvester Stallone outside of his Expendables cameos, but two of his most underrated dramatic turns in zombie drama Maggie and disaster drama Aftermath sank without a trace.
Killing Gunther was another reminder of his comic talents, though again, it fell through the cracks, while David Ayer’s Sabotage made just $22 million from theaters on a $35 million budget, despite Arnold Schwarzenegger once more winning praise for his turn as grizzled DEA veteran John ‘Breacher’ Wharton.
Critics may not have loved it, and audiences didn’t put their hands in their wallets the first time around, but Sabotage has been positively dominating Netflix’s Top 10 most-watched list since being added to the library last week. It’s now managed to climb up to second position on the US movies chart, and while it’s got no chance of toppling Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, it’s an impressive showing nonetheless for a grim and gritty crime thriller that boasts no shortage of grisly violence, forcing the leading man to rein in his natural charisma in favor of a more introspective approach to his character.
