Arnie is back in a typically action-packed thriller – but with cheap stunts and simple dialogue, FUBAR is nothing to get excited about
Netflix is gearing up for a summer of Schwarzenegger. He’s their new “Chief Action Officer”, according to a recent advert, and there’s a three-part documentary series on his life and career coming in June. But first, Arnie aficionados must wade through undercooked action-comedy FUBAR.
The 75-year-old former governor of California stars as an ageing super-spy, Luke Brunner, whose retirement plans go off the rails when he learns his adult daughter has a secret life as a CIA agent.
Schwarzenegger was Hollywood’s first and best action hero. As a
quippy beefcake, nobody could hold a flame-thrower to him in the 80s and
90s. Thankfully, that lunkish pizazz endures and is the saving grace in an
otherwise formulaic and forgettable comeback.
Plot-wise, FUBAR –
F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition, a military acronym for when things go
chaotically amiss – is a shameless riff on Schwarzenegger’s 1994 hit, True
Lies. In that movie, he played a suburban dad with a hidden identity as a US
counterterrorism agent. Here, he’s a suburban dad… with a secret life as a
US counterterrorism agent.
The twist is that, in addition to fighting terrorists and arms
dealers, Brunner must patch up a shaky relationship with adult daughter Emma
(a game Monica Barbaro, Top Gun: Maverick). She shares her father’s talent
for black ops and has been recruited by the CIA behind his back. But it’s
only as he’s half out the door and headed for retirement that he learns of
her secret identity when the agency sends him on secret mission to rescue
her in Central America. Father and daughter are equally miffed to discover
their nearest and dearest have been living a hidden life.
To its credit, FUBAR ticks off several solid action movie clichés.
There are “exotic” locations – including Central Asia and Moldova. The
action sequences have clearly been made on the tightened budgets that have
become a Netflix signature as it tightens its purse strings in the face of
falling subscriber numbers, but they’re often imaginative. Highlights
include a daddy-daughter team-up on a runaway train loaded with nuclear
waste and a climactic shoot-out in a church.
But the show is hobbled by a hugely annoying line-up of
secondary characters. Travis Van Winkle and Fortune Feimster strain in vain
for laughs as a bickering duo of field agents, while Milan Carter does his
best as Brunner’s irritatingly geeky side-kick, Barry.
The only
one who can hold their own against Arnold is Gabriel Luna, fantastically
over-the-top as mega-villain Boro. Luna, last seen in zombie apocalypse
drama The Last Of Us, munches on the scenery as the baddie whose
organisation Emma had been attempting to infiltrate when her dad is
parachuted in to help. There’s also an extended cameo by Tom Arnold, with
whom Schwarzenegger starred in True Lies, as a wacky torture
specialist.
Schwarzenegger has worked with visionaries such as James Cameron and
Paul Verhoeven. FUBAR lands quite a few rungs below those auteurs, though
its creator Rick Santora arrives fresh from his successful adaption of Lee
Child’s Jack Reacher series for Amazon.
Still, Schwarzenegger refuses to be put off by the often
workmanlike dialogue – he doesn’t get a single decent one-liner – and
rickety special effects. He has great fun taking on Boro, who has built a
portable nuclear bomb and plans to sell it to the highest bidder.
Schwarzenegger also deploys his nifty comic timing in a domestic sub-plot in
which Luke tries to win back his ex-wife Tally (Fabiana Udenio) away from
her nerdish fiancé Donnie (The Office’s Andy Buckley).
Schwarzenegger’s
enthusiasm has an electric effect on what would otherwise be a moribund
action-thriller. Any actor who can maintain his dignity in a toe-curling
scene in which Brunner and Emma are encouraged by a CIA psychologist to
express their feelings for each other using Sesame Street-style hand puppets
is to be admired.
The eight episodes culminate in a cliffhanger, almost
confirming a second season is on the cards (though you never know, given the
breakneck pace at which Netflix cancels series). Action fans will be
delighted that Arnold has returned and it looks as though he has no
intention of going anywhere. But what a shame that the Schwarzenegger
renaissance has to begin with this clanger.
