Geekscape Movie Reviews: Haywire
A few weeks ago, I was invited to the press conference and pre-screening of Soderbergh’s new film Haywire. If you’re like me in your cultural obliviousness, you may not recognize his name, but Soderbergh brought you such movies as Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic, Solaris, and Contagion just to name a few and make this paragraph uncomfortably long for one of my opening paragraphs.
See what happens when I try to educate the masses? Fucking long opening paragraphs. I don’t even know why I try. Here: there’s this director and he does stuff and he directed a movie called Haywire that’s coming out on Friday, January 20th.
Haywire is the major acting debut of female MMA fighter Gina Carano, a debut backed by an impressive line-up. Who is in this so-called impressive line-up? you may ask. Well… Ewan MacGregor, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender (who can call me anytime with declarations of love or just sexual intent), Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, and Bill Paxton. (Side Note: Paxton plays Carano’s father. I kinda wanted him to be my dad until I remembered Frailty.)
So this isn’t just some bit of fluff centering around bringing some fighting star to the big screen (I’m looking at you in particular, Mr. Kane, and your See No Evil). And Carano’s acting mostly holds for her part. There were all of two scenes where I cringed slightly at her acting and the rest was absolutely fine– not bad at all, with this being her first movie.
Oh, hai Mr. Fassbender.
This movie, in sum, focuses on the betrayal of security operative Mallory Kane (Carano– obviously, unless MacGregor is cross-dressing) and how she handles that betrayal (spoiler: mostly with violence). It’s an interesting collision between Ocean’s Eleven and The Bourne Identity.
This is being marketed, at least to the press, as not just another action movie– and it isn’t. Soderbergh ensures this on multiple levels.
On my Christmas list. FYI. (The gun, not Carano. Though I wouldn’t turn her down.)
The sound effects were unexpectedly enjoyable. It was the minimizing of unnecessary external noises, especially during pursuit scenes, and the maximizing of the noises that would be acknowledged by and matter to Carano as she fled, hunted, and waited. In a way, it dropped the boundary between Carano’s experience and the audience’s experience, letting us experience what she was experiencing.
The soundtrack was excellent as well– a mix of the Ocean’s Eleven soundtrack and what you would expect from Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts, sort of James Bondish, but with a more modern edge to it.
The fight scenes added an unexpected level of intensity. So many action movies are so damned unrealistic with their action that we don’t really react to it as an audience because we know it’s fake without even having to think about it. But while watching Haywire, sympathy groans filled theater scene after scene– you know, those “Oooh!” noises you make with your friends when you’re watching those dirt bike or skateboard injury– this film’s action never lost its edge, never went over the top.
One of the things I loved most about this movie was how the character of Mallory Kane dealt with her betrayal. I feel that too many times I’ve found myself watching this type of movie with a female lead who, once she finds her betrayer, (while beating him to death) asks tearfully, usually at high volumes, “Why?? WHHYYYYYYYYYYY?!“
Kane didn’t do that. She discovered a problem, she took care of it. There wasn’t a lot of emotion involved, just a tying up of loose ends, making sure everything was taken care of. When she questioned people, it was for information, not emotional succor. How goddamned cool is that? A female badass who is actually a badass, not just experiencing PMS. That’s role model material right there.
Bad ass role model, yes. But don’t take make-up tips from her.
Was this movie amazing? No. Will it change the world? No. But did Soderbergh, his crew, and his cast create a different sort of action movie? Yes. Will it hold your attention from beginning to end? Yes. Will you be cringing as much as I was at the realistic violence? Maybe. I’m kind of a pussy.
