Thank you, Steven Soderbergh, for finally making an action movie. For too long now the paying public has been assaulted with poorly shot and edited movies that render the on screen action indecipherable and incomprehensible, as shaking cameras and rapid cutting have become the norm and well-constructed and smartly-directed action has become a rarity. Fortunately for us all, Mr. Soderbergh doesn’t play the “camera tricks” game and instead gives us what we have been sorely needing – a fun, slick, hard-hitting action film.
Essentially Haywire a spy thriller, as freelance spy operative Mallory Kane (Gina Carano, American Gladiators) first embarks on a rescue mission, and then finds herself betrayed by her private company employers. But of course Mallory is a total bad ass so she doesn’t die and instead sets out to right the wrongs against her and find out why she was betrayed. A rather simple and cliché set up, actually, seen time and again in many films throughout the years. But the way the story unfolds brings freshness to the ideas, and of course making a sexy woman your tough-as-nails heroine helps to keep things interesting.
And it’s a lot of fun watching this chick go around decimating people, as she can do anything from grapple and wrestle to straight up punch a dude out, and that’s really the key to making this movie work. Ms. Carano isn’t a little, tiny thing with skeleton arms or anything like that – she is well-built and believable in her scenes, whether she’s wielding an automatic weapon, fighting with Channing Tatum or Michael Fassbender, or running people down on the streets like a cheetah, it all looks plausible as she really seems to know how to handle herself (which, given her professional MMA background, one can assume she does).
And about those fights with Tatum and Fassbender – both of those men are rather physically fit and look like they can out a hurting on someone, and in their individual fight scenes with Carano, they all go for broke and really lay into each other, which makes each scene that much better. Whether she’s wrestling a gun away from one man in a diner or having a full on knock em down, drag em out round of fisticuffs with the other in a hotel room, the action looks brutal and intense and is always presented in a way that gives maximum impact, as opposed to obscuring all of the sweet action with epileptic cameramen and ADHD-inflicted editors.
With Carano being what could be considered a “non-professional” actor, as well as a largely unknown entity to most audiences, it was smart surrounding her with a bevy of actors who are quite good at their craft. Along with the aforementioned Michael Fassbender, and the surprisingly decent Channing Tatum, Haywire features strong work from Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor and Bill Paxton, which could have disastrously led to Carano being far more noticeable in her lack of acting chops, but instead she holds her own and they manage to elevate her to their plane, making it all work quite well.
The story itself is lean and mean, with little to no fat on it and propelling forward from scene to scene to the inevitable conclusion. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this could have been a simple DTV movie featuring no name actors and filmed entirely in Bulgaria. But Mr. Soderbergh knows what’s up and he applies his particular taste and art house tendencies to this script and makes it far more entertaining and interesting than most others would have been able to do. The digital cinematography looks great (thanks to Soderbergh’s camera-wielding alter-ego Peter Andrews) and the score has a very 70’s feel to it, thanks to Soderbergh’s Oceans 11-13 and Out of Sight composer David Holmes.
Haywire is an excellent movie, much better than the usual January fare, and we should all thank Steven Soderbergh for giving us the film at this time. It’s the perfect answer to all of the awful modern action movies we get these days, and it comes when there is usually nothing new worth watching in theaters, so Haywire solves two problems in one. Too bad we can’t get more films like this on the reg.
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