Haywire
Well-choreographed butt-kicking performance by Carano, still is shadowed by narrow story.
Here we have an action film (surprise!) from Steven Soderbergh, his second film in last 4 months. Interesting to mention both movies are mainstream. In the traditions of the latest action movies this is “as realistic as it gets” type of action movies. The same way as “Taken” and alike. Its a real-life James Bond type of story, wrapped into enormous amount of fistfight and whatnot.
Mallory Cane (Gina Carano) is the best agent for a non-government “problem solving” company. Regular jobs she conducts range from security to complex hostage extraction. She is best at her job, and doesn’t like keeping loose ends. However, she soon finds out that the people she trusted turned against her and are trying to kill her. Now she is going to take revenge on anyone for burning her.
Gina Carano is a newcomer and ex-MMA fighter. She utilizes every single fight trick she has ever learned. And it hurts a lot. All the kicks doesn’t seem to be choreographed. She performs her own stunts, and spends incredible amount of time kicking assess of the supporting cast. And when I say supporting cast I mean Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender. I don’t know what was the reason of using such a big names in such a small roles, but this is Soderbergh, he likes that.
I’m really glad Soderbergh did move on from Ocean’s 1i (where i = 1,2,3) and tries to improvise in the genre he has never worked in. He uses all his directorial knowledge to make this film a good one. But I think he overdid it. His trademark framing and cinematography is visible in any shots. Film has fast pacing of an action movie and sometimes slower sections as in spy movies.
Unfortunately, unlike “Taken” this film seems boring. And it should be. You need to have super incredible action hero that can withstand super injuries and still be able to kill anyone. This is entertainment, this is what action movie is about. Real life is boring. You can not smash a bottle to a someone’s head and expect him not get a concussion.
6/10
