Review: Sabotage

Blu-ray: Sabotage (1996)

Sabotage opens with a tense assault in war torn Bosnia. Mark Dacascos is Mark Bishop, a tough special forces operative who is attempting to rescue a group of hostages before they are brutally executed.

Things don’t go according to plan and we cut to three years later where Dacascos has been dishonourably discharged and is now a bodyguard. The person he is protecting becomes a target for assassin Tony Todd and what ensues is a deadly cat and mouse chase.

Carrie-Anne Moss plays an FBI agent who is tough and determined whilst working in a mans world. She’s in charge of the investigation and doesn’t take crap from anyone, despite not being taken seriously by her colleagues. As the story takes twists and turns Dacascos and Moss reluctantly join forces and begin to unravel a conspiracy in this well made taut thriller.

I haven’t seen many movies with Mark Dacascos and it’s clearly apparent that he has a lot of charm and charisma. He does a lot of his own stunts which gives the movie an authentic feel. Dacascos also puts his martial arts skills to great use and there are some good action scenes for a movie with an obviously low budget.

It was also nice to see Carrie-Anne Moss before she became famous as Trinity in The Matrix. She does a fantastic job in a convincing role, juggling being a mother and a no nonsense agent.

Graham Greene is a shady former commanding officer of Dacascos and he portrays a suitably slimy character where you’re never quite sure about his motivations.

Special mention has to go to the wonderful Tony Todd who is fantastic and has a lot of fun playing the bad guy. I am a big fan of Tony Todd so any movie he appears in automatically gains extra points. He has real screen presence and is completely engaging even when he is brutally murdering folk.

I’m going to be perfectly honest and say that I wasn’t expecting much from Sabotage. However, I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. I found myself drawn into the story and all of the stars did a great job in creating drama and tension. If you’re a fan of any of the actors who appear in the movie and fancy some cloak and dagger espionage then I’d totally recommend you give Sabotage a watch.

Review by Chris (co-host of 60 Minutes With and The Same Coin) from a disc kindly supplied by 101 Films.