Haywire (2011)

Brilliant and touching

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Screenwriter Lem Dobbs and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh fashioned this ultimately routine globe-trotting action thriller as a vehicle for famed Mixed Martial Arts fighter Gina Carano. Gina shows poise in the role of Mallory Kane, an operative for a private firm hired to retrieve a kidnapped journalist. Things go wrong, and eventually she is double crossed; an attempt is made on her life. Naturally, she will go on the lam and be on a mission of vengeance; she desperately relates her story (what she knows of it, anyway) to an innocent young man (Michael Angarano) as she appropriates his car and his services.The film certainly looks great, but as a showcase for Ginas' fighting skills, it's not all it could be. She does righteously kick some ass, and look great doing it, but the relatively brief "Haywire" (running an hour and 33 minutes) does get rather bogged down in story. Ginas' screen presence is fine, although she was apparently dubbed by actress Laura San Giacomo, with whom Soderbergh worked on "Sex, Lies and Videotape". Still, it's easy enough to root for her, and Soderbergh keeps the pedal to the metal throughout. The story is nothing special, but for anybody who might get confused, it all gets explained right near the end.Soderbergh made sure to surround Gina with excellent co-stars who could help to do some of the heavy lifting: Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, Michael Fassbender, Mathieu Kassovitz. McGregor is enjoyably slimy as her boss, and Paxton is wonderfully low key as her loving dad."Haywire" is technically a slick picture, and the propulsive music score by David Holmes helps to drive the tale forward. It wastes no time getting into the story, as the title & credits are saved for the final several minutes of the run time. At the very least, it proved that Carano had the potential to be an icon in this genre.Six out of 10.

This is a vehicle for former MMA star Gina Carano, ably supported by Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender and Antonio Banderas. Despite probable debut nerves, Gina handles herself quite well in such celebrated company. Like Tinker, Tailor... the film is not about acting charisma but focused on the story and all the characters just serve to push it along. The plot is a fairly standard blackops agent set up and the scene is nicely set for the sequel it probably deserves. Does Kenneth actually die? Before killing him, does Mallory extract shocking new information from Rodrigo (or does his new wife even manage to save him)? Does she go after Studer next and bring down his crime syndicate? And is Coblenz as innocent as he makes out, or just using her to clean up a trail that actually leads back to him? These are all loose ends that could be exploited before one even bothers to think up a new adventure, whether working for the government or independently. Good luck with that Gina :o)

With a parade of great names in its ensemble cast, this movie really disappoint in overall. The story tried really hard to be intriguing, using all those black and white coloration, and the back and forth story flow. But at the core the story just emerges as one that is merely predictable. With all those big names on as by-standing characters, audiences surely get easily alarmed and guess who's the really bad guy in the movie. Having Gina Carano as the main character surely isn't the best choice. She made the character looked flat, despite the movie's attempt to enrich Mallory's character. Acting wise, this one is a strange pick. As Gina Carano made her character bad, the rest of the big names in the cast okay to give live to their parts.

After watching Deadpool I remembered that I didn't watch this movie, Gina Carano action vehicle from 2011. Now that I have done that I have some questions.First one - how did this got made in the first place? I find it insane that Soderbergh cast Gina Carano as a goddamn lead in this and then cast all star acting crew around her. I mean, supporting actors here are Tatum, Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Banderas, Michael Douglas, etc.Don't get me wrong, stunt casting is sometimes interesting and I generally like Carano in Deadpool but she is so flatfaced and not good in this. Yeah, fights are cool, but you don't get that star cast just to support someone who is a noob actor like her. It's confusing and kinda boring movie, which is even more perplexing given the great supporting cast. Story is not that good as well and photography is somewhat average with completely uninteresting shots and frames. Weird-but-not-that-bad movie this Haywire is. Can't recommend it though, except if you want to see how odd it is.