Directed by:
Steven SoderberghScreenplay:
Lem DobbsCinematography:
Steven SoderberghComposer:
David HolmesCast:
Gina Carano, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, Michael Angarano, Mathieu Kassovitz (more)VOD (3)
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Stephen Soderbergh directs an all star cast in action thriller Haywire, including mixed martial arts supremo Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, a highly-trained black ops specialist, contracted for hazardous covert missions by the US Government. When her paymaster's point-man (Ewan McGregor) teams her with fellow agent (Channing Tatum) to extract a Chinese journalist held hostage in a Barcelona safe house, the mission swiftly unravels and she barely escapes with her life. During her next assignment in Dublin, with Irish assassin Paul (Michael Fassbender) Mallory is violently betrayed and pursued across the city by the local police and assorted ruthless hitmen. (Koch Media)
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Deadly Is the Female. Soderbergh approached the cohabitation of a man and woman in an absolutely logical way – as an action thriller. The film’s leitmotif is the necessity of overcoming the collapse of one’s first serious relationship. Meanwhile, the female protagonist tries marriage, seen by both participants from the beginning as a game full of pretence and rather abruptly ended after the wedding night, which has the nature of a life-and-death struggle. The only man she can depend on is her father, whose brains she wants to blow out and from whom Mallory herself keeps no secrets. So, she finds certainty only in returning home, not in a fake relationship with one of her “tried and tested” partners, whom she doesn’t even know properly. ___ Unlike in “patriarchal” spy thrillers (e.g. Bond movies), the woman here is not a negative character, but actually the only positive one. She doesn’t gain men’s respect with her charm and intellect, but with her physical dominance. Though she uses her body as she would to erotically entice a man (to act as a mere decoy is beneath her level), she does so in a more energetic way. Thanks to the raw content of the elegantly filmed fight scenes (unlike Bourne-style shaky-cam filming), the feeling of physical contact is far more intense than in action movies depending exclusively on sharp editing. ___ Watching the protagonist’s body in motion is doubly pleasurable for male viewers, as her repeated displays of control over the situation (rather than the camera’s control over her body) mitigates the feeling of voyeuristic guilt. Here, a beautiful woman does not appear as an object of leering gazes, but as a goal- and action-oriented person who takes greater initiative even in the matter of sex. ___ During the first two-thirds of the film, Mallory’s dominance over the image is further multiplied by the fact that this involves the retelling of previous events through her flashbacks. We are provocatively and repeatedly made aware that she is steering her narrative to a particular character who is basically unimportant for the story. Our “eye”, represented by the camera in the diegesis, is not even allowed into the car in which the protagonist summarises her history. (This lends itself also to the interpretation that the terrified young man represents the typical action-movie viewer, whom Soderbergh is somewhat making fun of – that’s why, for example, Mallory constantly repeats important names, just as crucial information is repeated in Hollywood action flicks.) ___ The revealing of moments when Haywire uses the stripped-down action plot for the purpose of supra-genre commentary does not comprise the film’s essence, but its value added. At its core, it is a brisk, though dramaturgically loose female variation on Bourne movies, or rather (given the B-movie subject matter) Commando, in which an emerging action star crushes his (for the moment) more famous acting colleagues between his thighs on various continents and nothing can stop us from savouring the action in and of itself. Chuck Norris may know how to divide by zero and Bond’s double-o gives him a license to kill, but Gina Carano would nullify both of them before they could utter the word “shit”. 80%
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Of all the action movies in which the female lead character kicks the ass of all the men present that I've had the pleasure to see so far in my life, the thriller Haywire enthralled me the least, therefore, barely at all. I watched it more or less for the decent-sounding cast, but I didn't give a damn about the plot from just a few minutes in. (40%)
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Everything but cliché. An excellent film that you need to learn to like. Gina Carano is an incredible fighter and the action scenes are amazing, in my opinion better than in the Bourne trilogy; they are dense, believable, physical. You can feel MMA with every second. Packed with stars, but only on the surface. Soderbergh plays incredibly well with the given genre and essentially shows everyone the middle finger. Many people won't appreciate this film, but a few will really like it.
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Soderbergh goes against expectations once more - although that was actually expected - and offers a simple fable in which the plot comes last. The schematics of the director's rendition of the secret agents and even more secret leaders evoke in me a mockery of the rules of the genre rather than its adoration. I'm no film scholar, so I don't have to do any digging into it. I was entertained by the clear action scenes, dominated by Gina Carano's physical abilities, and Soderbergh's unorthodox approach. So when Holmes' bizarre music plays during the hostage liberation scene, which evokes cheap spy themes, I sank into my seat and rode on a fully positive wave until the end. PS: I'd damn well change places with Fassbender in the leg choke scene.
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Steven Soderbergh is a director who is able to attract stars of the silver screen for his films. The same goes for the film "Haywire". Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and even Channing Tatum are actors who have already made a name for themselves, some of which will never be forgotten. None of them have enough space in the movie because the attention is focused on the main character, Gina Carano, a fitness instructor and martial arts specialist. It is evident in the action scenes, they are tough, animalistic, and perfectly executed. And not only thanks to Gina, but also thanks to the other actors. The trailer, where Gina confronts Michael Fassbender, clearly shows that the action aspect is excellently developed, the choreography simply works. But that's all there is to it. Soderbergh presents us with a story that is incredibly small and simple. From a person who made all the "Ocean's" movies and also the excellent film "Contagion" from the same year as "Haywire", I would simply expect more. The random connection with the young man Scott, to whom the main character actually tells everything, is, in my opinion, unnecessary and does not have any proper justification. In the end, it is just an ordinary film about how a tough agent wants to find out what happened, why she was betrayed, and then, of course, seeks revenge. There is no big action finale either. Soderbergh took it as a break and critics will give it good ratings just because it's Soderbergh. This is just bad. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/07/runaways-rok-jedna-nedotknutelni-johnny.html
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