Arnold on Netflix Review: Arnold Schwarzenegger pats his own back but only scratches the surface

Arnold is orchestrating his own resurgence through Netflix these days. Appearing in hilarious ads as Netflix’s “Chief Action Officer” and making the jump to the OTT space with the action comedy series FUBAR, the 75-year-old former bodybuilder and California Governor is clearly enjoying retirement by taking the jokes on himself. 

However, his latest venture with Netflix, a three-part documentary series simply called Arnold, is no joke (even though it plays out almost like a preachy TED talk at times). Divided into three chapters (Athlete, Actor, American), the series finds the Terminator remembering his younger days when his alcoholic, abusive father came back defeated from the War (he sided with the Nazis), when he faced ridicule for venturing into Hollywood with a thick accent and bulky frame, and when he cheated on his wife with the house help and had an illegitimate child. 

So, if you think this is the documentary where Arnold breaks the silence on such tumultuous events of his life, be warned. He barely scratches the surface and just mentions these instances like details from his Wikipedia page. 

What the 80s action star does delve into is…himself (what else can you expect from a series called Arnold). 'The Governator' tries his best to sound inspiring and admittedly, the viewers are bound to feel inspired at some point or the other. You see him plan out his American dream as an Austrian farmboy. He then wins every bodybuilding title there is and moves to America, a feeling he describes as “I finally found my home”. But Arnold doesn’t stop; he has new dreams and so battles the terror known as “character actors” (it’s hilarious when Arnold describes how lean, lanky men like Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman were threatening his career) and becomes a full-blown action star in his own right. 

All this time, the viewer can excuse the self-celebration. Arnold might not be the best actor but from his bodybuilding days to his retirement, he has always been a performer. And in this documentary too, his immersive narration is bound to keep you glued even if he’s offering you no bombshell details or awe-inducing anecdotes. The Netflix original is just the old man yapping about all his glory and he’s just charming enough to still make it sound interesting. 

But then the self-celebration comes at a point of exhaustion by the last episode when he describes his journey as a politician. And it is with this episode that one starts to wonder that the docu-series is just contradicting itself. 

On one hand, the last episode paints Arnold’s rise to government power as aclear byproduct of his stardom (the actor himself boasts about the financial backing he had). His political associates also touch upon how unlike other politicians, Arnold genuinely had fun at office. All this might make you think that yes, the killer of the “Predator” is a guy who was in the right place at the right time when it came to his political sojourn. 

But no, then Arnold and the rest of the interviewees add how his climate action policies and diverse style of governance (by mixing Democrats and Republicans in his team of political “expendables”) make him a politician par excellence. Even archival footage of Obama giving a shoutout to Arnie’s climate change “terminating” ideas is played, moments before Arnold’s amusing anti-Putin video also plays (the same one where he tells the Russian army that they are being misled against Ukraine and also takes a dig at the White House break-in by pro-Trump supporters). 

If that wasn't all, the finale also ends with a montage of Arnold visiting the Holocaust Museum at Auschwitz. 

You can't help but also chuckle at the naivety of it all. Even though Arnold doesn't say it, one is bound to wonder how the world's once-biggest action star would want to save the world in reality. Maybe, somewhere down the line, Arnie wishes that he could be an actual indestructible machine to protect humanity. 

Netflix's Arnold is ultimately the journey of a man who worked hard on himself to leave a mark of greatness. But the contradictions continue as after talking so much about his long and ardous journey from an Austria farm town to Hollywood, he says, 

That is just Arnold's way of thanking the people in his life who helped him in advancing his career. But the self-obsession eventually outweighs this brief moment of humility. And while it might make some cringe, fans of Arnold (or just Hollywood and the action genre in general) will be delighted with even his strangely admirable cockiness. 

The man boldly says that dreaming isn't enough. What he did to be successful was to "visualise" each and everything that he wanted. He visualised himself winning Mr Universe and picking up the trophy like his bodybuilding idol and so he got to achieve this goal. He similarly visualised victories in every other career that he ventured into. You get the gist of it. 

The Netflix original is a shamelessly self-indulgent documentary and this is what works in its favour. The first episode about his bodybuilding career is an interesting look into not just Arnold’s origins but the sport’s origins too before it turned into a full-fledged brand. Some unintentional yet all the more interesting homoerotic undertones also seep into this episode with Arnold talking about how he loved training with his bodybuilding buddies and oiling each other’s bodies. His own mother was concerned with him in his teens as his bedroom wall was adorned with magazine cutouts and posters of half-naked men with bodies of Greek gods!

The second chapter on his acting career is an equally interesting look at Arnold’s career although it would have been more engaging if he also talked about his flops and career disappointments in greater detail. Otherwise, there are plenty of documentaries and YouTube film essays to tell you how iconic Arnold-starrers like The Terminator, Commando and Predator were made. The highlight of this episode is, of course, Arnold’s constant frenemy and fellow action star Sylvester Stallone. 

Reminiscing on their former rivalry in the 80s ("I wanted to throw him off a cliff"), Stallone jokes about how he and Arnie are old dinosaurs now. But just like Stallone is still relevant (he is appearing in a fourth Expendables movie now), Arnold too continues to hold on to the last shreds of pop culture relevance that he can cling on to. 

Netflix’s Arnold is ultimately a simple yet moving eulogy of a larger-than-life figure. If you are willing to look past the tiresome third episode, you can have a fun binge with the docu-series. Just don’t expect anything deep and profound underneath the stardom and achievements. You will find nothing but the cloudy smoke from Arnold’s millionth cigar. 

We’re going with 3 out of 5 stars for Arnold.