Yup, I get really irked, I think someone said something regarding Need for speed along the lines of, why would you expect a story.... because it's a film.
There is nothing wrong with doing action, and there is nothing wrong with acting and writing alongside action. I don't expect to see a documentary but if I see 5 guys who should be locked up AND they were being investigated, so interviewed, polygraphs probably, drug testing..... no, I expect they'd be fired. It's instantly 100% unbelievable, there was no reason at any stage for them to act as they did.
Die Hard was good because the story was actually good, and the actors actually tried to act, and effectively no one seemed entirely out of place(FBI idiots aside).
Sabotage... it's just ridiculous. The thing is it wasn't just the drugged up redneck swat type team being stupid, it's that nothing they said was funny, nothing was interesting. It was just loud, and abrasive, being loud and abrasive lent nothing to the scene, it just made no sense. These are all actors who can act, some better than others, randomly shouting stupid nonsense is just.... stupid. It was needless. But the female cop who came in, her dialogue was equally as bad. THese weren't funny one liners, or just boring, but literally ridiculous.
There are plenty of boring films where the dialogue isn't interesting or great, but it's not seemingly purposefully utterly absurd.
Sabotage went beyond just meh, into, purposefully awful dialogue, like you have to go out of your way to write dialogue that made so little sense. The simple thing is they would all be sombre and say very little, one being drunk and angry makes sense, but just randomly talking about strippers and banging, and fighting with a cop. The guy was just instantly angry with no build up, no reason. Have her ask him a question like "where were you last night", so suggesting he's a suspect THEN he gets mental and angry. Instead it was just drivel, complete and utter drivel.
I just don't get the attitude that "it's an action film, so everything besides guns going off is pretty much irrelevant".
The difference between say Die Hard and some Dolph Lundgren was usually the story/dialogue/quality of acting. Not more guns or bigger explosions. The best action films have believable characters and action. The worse action films have less believable characters and action.
Die Hard 1, good, Die hard later on... worse dialogue, worse acting, worse casts, worse film. Matrix 2 and 3 were pap, 1 was briliant. More action, worse story, worse acting, less believable... and the sequels were horrendous. First one had less action, more story, but the story was better, the acting was better and the action in smaller bursts done a million times better made the entire film a million times better.
**** sux!
