Steven Soderbergh approached Haywire as a chance to turn Gina Carano into a movie star. As sheâs been cast in the next Fast and Furious movie, itâs likely that weâll see more from her. But Soderbergh approached doing an action movie as an art project, so he played with the structure and style of the modern action film. Itâs ambitious, and not entirely successful. But he was right on the money that Carano can carry a movie. Haywire costars Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Ewan McGreggor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Bill Paxton, and our review of the Blu-ray follows after the jump.
The film beings with Malory Kane (Carano) going to a coffee shop where Aaron (Tatum) shows up to take her in. Sheâs not going to go quietly, and the film begins with a pretty brutal hand to hand fight. Kane wins and takes witness Scott (Michael Angarano) with her to have someone who knows why people are trying to kill her. She was on an assignment with Aaron where sheâs supposed to rescue a hostage, but it doesnât go as smoothly as expected. And then her ex-boyfriend/employer Kenneth (McGreggor) sends her to Ireland with Paul (Fassbender) on whatâs supposed to be a simple job as Paulâs date. Of course it couldnât be simple and Paul tries to kill her, so sheâs on the lam from the police and other agents. Kenneth has been working with government officials Coblenz (Douglas) and Rodrigo (Banderas), and itâs hard to know why sheâs been set up. But â even though they threaten Kaneâs father (Paxton), sheâs not someone to mess with.
Whatâs great about modern cinema is that weâre seeing roles played by women that used to be left to only men (except in Blaxploitation). Between this, Hanna, The Hunger Games, The Avengers and more weâre seeing women getting to kick ass and take names in ways that are refreshing. Carano is never treated as anything less than an incredible bad ass, and as an audition piece, the film succeeds. She can handle herself on screen, and if the script and plotting plays up her strengths as an amateur, she comes out smelling like a rose.
But Soderberghâs approach (similar in some ways to The Limey) points out how shallow most of these movies are. But where you might be able to be distracted by the action and mechanics in low-rent actions films, here itâs hard to forget that thereâs absolutely nothing going on under the surface. Itâs just a simple âYou messed with the wrong personâ narrative, and the twisting of structure, and beautiful compositions emphasize the shallowness more than hide it. There are some great shots, and Soderbergh knows how to put sequences together, but the film is curiously inert.
Which makes it smart that itâs a 90 minute movie. But this sort of film â though Soderbergh shoots clean action sequences â isnât really in his wheelhouse. Thatâs the fun of Soderbergh - heâs constantly trying different things, so he deserves credit for that. Itâs interesting, but ultimately (like many of his films) an experiment.
Lionsgate presents the film on Blu-ray with a digital copy. The film is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and in English 5.1 DTS-HD master audio. The transfer is excellent, and Soderberghâs cinematography (done under his pseudonym Peter Andrews) is well represented as is David Holmesâs excellent score. There are two featurettes âGina Carano in Trainingâ (16 min.) and âthe Men of Haywireâ (5 min.). The former offers more comments from the star and excerpts from a talk Soderbergh gave on the film, while the later gets EPK style interviews with Fassbender, McGreggor, Tatum and Banderas. Not much here, all things.