You won't be disappointed!

Just what I expected

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A Hitchcock thriller made in his UK years, SABOTAGE opens with its own definition in a dictionary, but there is little to be said apropos of the motivation behind the anarchists. It is an usual London night, all the razzle-dazzle is in full bloom, suddenly a blackout causes some commotion on the street and in the centre stage there is Bijou cinema, where patrons are baying for refund of their tickets, at the same time, its owner Mr. Verloc (Homolka) furtively sneaks back to his apartment upstairs, and pretends that he has never gone out when his wife (Sidney) surprisingly finds him on the bed. So it seems that this time Mr. Hitchcock doesn't play either the whodunit or the why-do-it card and clocking in a condensed 76-minute, the film even waive the possibility of a McGuffin to compel audience into the puzzle. Admittedly, there is no puzzle at all, Mr. Verloc is the said saboteur, whose blackout sabotage doesn't quite hit the mark (even being pilloried by the media) and he is tasked to up the antes, it doesn't take much persuasion for him to forgo his no-casualties-causing vow to collude with a professor (Dewhurst) who is excel at making "fireworks". In a straightforward manner, the story also sidetracks in the incipient attractions between Ms. Verloc and Ted (Loder), who works in the green-grocery next to the cinema, but his real identity is an undercover sergeant of Scotland Yard, and secretly stakes out Mr. Verloc. Ms. Verloc has no inking of her hubby's insidious deal, time and again she tells Ted that Mr. Verloc has the most kind-hearted soul she has ever met, which is a farcically self-defeating statement because whoever has eyes can palpably detect something amiss in Oskar Homolka's hammy affectation with all those mannered scowls and insincere oratory, one might seriously wonder how dumb a woman could be if she fails to sense that from the man she shares a bed every night, that's a disservice to Hitchcock's heroine, beautiful but dumb, yet, she still deserves a miracle in the end. Then there is that infamous "boy with a bomb" set piece, the story is a no-brainer, but the suspense never goes to seed under Hitchcock's rein. One must admit it is a left-field coup-de- théâtre (through a string of heightened montages) a first-time spectator barely can see it coming, Mr. Hitchcock really dares to corroborate that nothing is impossible on the silver screen, although in retrospect this only materializes as a flash in the pan because when he veers into the Hollywood thoroughfare, he will be inured to adhere to a more morally rigorous precept. A minor Hitchcock film can still be engaging, only its aftertaste tends to be a shade astringent.

There's no question that Alfred Hitchcock is a master film director, seeing as how a movie this old can hold up decently in 2011. However, "Sabotage" lacks one key element keeping it from really being a classic: context.For a basic plot summary, "Sabotage" sees an English theater owner (Oskar Homolka) and his wife (Sylvia Sidney) get caught up in an espionage plot with shades of terrorism.This movie is classic Hitch through and through. It has the conflicted characters, moments of high tension, and the eventual "MacGuffin" that drives the story forward. For what it does accomplish, the film is quite good. Not overwhelming in any sense, but the tension (at times) is palpable and will hook viewers into wanting to see how it all turns out.The problem, though, is that the characters and events are given absolutely no context whatsoever. This "exposition" phase of the storytelling is skipped altogether. Thus, it is difficult to be 100% engaged in the story when it begins and ends so abruptly.Overall, this is a decent Hitchcock film that is more than worth a viewing from hard-core Hitch fans. It doesn't hold a candle to his later American works, but for what it is it's entertaining.

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, at this stage just the vigorous maverick of the Gaumont-British sentry, carved a mercilessly sensational bit from Conrad's The Secret Agent into a proficient drill in suspense. Sabotage is flawed plotting, but unqualified histrionics. Edgily dismissing all but the facade of motivation, the great manipulator thrusts his lens into the nucleus of Conrad's plot and extracts a giftedly implemented splinter of a story. What makes Hitchcock Hitchcock is that his technique is its own justification.Invariably the master of his movie's fate, this sculptor of modern cinema has compacted this story to the nuts and bolts, choosing just those events which he could crook to his dramatic command. His tempo is deceivingly measured, but he lurches mercilessly to his climaxes and makes the effect intense and unexpected. The excellent Oscar Homolka, Sylvia Sidney, John Loder and that winning youngster Desmond Tester, are held tightly to the frontier of plot development and, inside the slender confines Hitchcock allows them, supply thoroughgoing characterizations.For reasons vague, minor cinema owner Verloc has been ordered to terrorize London. His gateway is to disable the city's lighting works. London receives the blackout as a gag. The foreign agent retaining him cautions that London better not chuckle next time: A time bomb, placed in a Piccadilly cloakroom, would truly try the British sense of humor.Verloc, being watched by Scotland Yard, is incapable of sending the bomb himself and picks his wife's baby brother as the innocuous courier of terror. The kid takes the paper-wrapped bomb, calculated to explode at quarter two, and commences his venture across town. Verloc has cautioned him to leave the little box no later than half one. Despite the Master of Suspense's later nitpicking of his work here, he orders the sequence mischievously. It's excruciating to have to helplessly watch the heedless youngster's easygoing movement across London, stopping at shop windows, volunteered by a sidewalk vender for a presentation, postponed by a parade, by traffic and finicky policemen.Homolka as Verloc is an ideal means for Hitchcock's calculated rhythm. Sidney as his baffled wife, mothering her young brother, John Loder as the amorous Scotland Yard sergeant, William Dewhurst as the bomb maker and of course Tester are severally solid. But this is Hitchcock's film and a worthy early one.

Master of Suspense director Sir Alfred Hitchcock started his successful career in his home country, and this was one of the last films he made before going to the United States (although he did return home for Frenzy), I was interested. Basically Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolka) is a cinema owner and a member of a gang planning to sabotage operations in London, and he lives with his wife Sylvia (Beetlejuice's Sylvia Sidney) and her teenage brother Stevie (Desmond Tester). His wife and her brother know nothing about Karl's big secret, even after a big incident where many lights in a part of London were turned off, but there are worse things to happen than that. Suspecting something is going on with Verloc, Scotland Yard assigns undercover Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder) to keep an eye on him, working near the cinema and investigate. Sylvia didn't originally know anything, but her suspicion arises, and at a reasonably good time because the gang assign Karl to put a bomb in the metro, so he sends young Stevie with a bag for him to "deliver", but he does not make it all the way to the right location for the explosion. In the end the villain Karl gets what he deserves being stabbed by his own wife, and London seems to be safe from anymore sabotage incidents, and Sylvia walks away with Ted. Also starring Joyce Barbour as Renee, Matthew Boulton as Superintendent Talbot, S.J. Warmington as Hollingshead, William Dewhurst as Professor A.F. Chatman, and Hitchcock's cameo is as the man passing looking up when the lights go back on. The acting is reasonable, the best scene is certainly unknowingly carrying the bomb in the bag, and there are some good tense moments you would expect from the great director, a watchable mystery thriller. Very good!