I cannot help but wonder if this movie would have gotten better reviews if Schwarzenegger had not been cast in the lead role. I get the feeling that people had certain expectations due to the choice of actor. In any case, the ridiculously low one and two star ratings are rubbish. They are utterly undeserved as far as I am concerned.

Personally, I quite liked the movie. Sure it is not Oscar material and it will not go on any of my top ten lists but I found it rather enjoyable to watch.

Schwarzy is not young any more so you should not expect him to play roles as he did at the height of his career before he made the unfortunate decision to wade into the dirty waters of politics. Still he performed quite alright in the various action scenes in this movie. And there are a fair amount of action in the movie as well as a fair amount of blood substitute. It is not really an all out action movie though and the story that underpins the action have a certain amount of drama in it.

I would say that the actors in general are doing a god job of their roles. The drug enforcement team looks more like a biker gang than a police team but then, to work undercover in the world of the drug cartels you really have to be part crazy. There are no young sexy chicks in this movie, unless you count a few scenes in bars and strip clubs. Actually the two female lead characters can be said to be downright ugly which may be another reason why some people of the younger audience give the movie a low rating although that is of course pure speculation on my part :-) . In any case, I think the choice of female characters fits perfectly well with the rest of the movie (as well as Schwarzy’s age).

The story is a mix of the fairly classical one of revengeful drug cartels and incompetent FBI directors with a bit of a twist from the money heist and the disappearing money. The implementation might be a wee bit imperfect at times but to me it was a good enough story. I did like the ending with the classical shoot out in the bar although I also did consider taking a star off due to the tragic last few scenes. What can I say? I am a sucker for happy endings.