Product Description
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Directed by O winner* Steven Soderbergh (Contagion), this
dynamic action-thriller introduces mixed martial arts (MMA)
superstar Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, a black-ops agent for a
government security contractor.
After freeing a Chinese journalist held hostage, Mallory is
double-crossed and left for dead – by someone in her own agency.
Suddenly the target of assassins who know her every move, Mallory
unleashes the fury of her fighting skills to uncover the truth
and turn the tables on her ruthless adversary.
Featuring Carano performing her own high-adrenaline stunts and an
all-star cast including Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill
Paxton, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas,
HAYWIRE is explosive movie entertainment.
.com
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Gentleman filmmaker Steven Soderbergh leads a pretty charmed
professional life exploring themes, genres, and intensely
personal subjects that capture his fancy any time the spirit
moves him. Thanks largely to the huge success of the Ocean's
series, he's earned A-list clout and pretty much carte blanche to
follow the combination of whimsy or serious interest that has
become his M.O. in alternating projects that are either for
"them" (Hollywood capitalists) or strictly for him. Hot on the
heels of Contagion, his deadly serious and terrifyingly authentic
thriller from late 2011, Haywire is a different kind of exercise
in genre and formal technique, but cut from the same Soderbergh
cloth of enthusiasm and impeccable craftsmanship. Both movies
also seem to bring together the for-me and for-them elements of
his career, letting him follow a highbrow personal style while
also creating terrific pieces of entertainment that are easily
accessible to the wants of cinema sophisticates and lovers of
thrills, action, and dramatic ingenuity alike. Haywire is
certainly more fun than Contagion as an out-and-out action
extravaganza, with a silly and largely superfluous plot thread
wound around private covert intelligence operatives, the shadowy
government entities that employ them, and the double-crosses that
ensue when operations go wrong. Using a back-and-forth narrative
structure that shifts time and scrambles events as they unfold,
Haywire is primarily a showcase for Gina Carano, a superstar in
the world of mixed martial arts. Carano makes her screen debut as
Mallory Kane with understated hotness and a constant barrage of
fighting stunt work that reduces almost every high-profile costar
into a mass of broken s. The series of operations she
instigates or participates in take her on a stylishly
globetrotting adventure to Spain, Ireland, New Mexico, rural New
York State, and points in between. She stumbles into and wriggles
out of danger everywhere she goes with omb, kicks, punches,
strangulations, and s that are spectacularly choreographed
and do not rely on flash cuts or the kind of utterly confusing
shifts in spatial relationships that mark most run-of-the-mill
action sequences. Though the substance is largely beside the
point--motivations and resolutions are not nearly as important as
the polished, methodical, or frenzied bouts of kinetic
energy--there is some semblance of comprehension conveyed in the
spare script by Soderbergh's screenwriter collaborator Lem Dobbs.
Carano is only able to strike a few notes in her acting ability
between kicks, leg strangulations, and other acrobatic acts of
violence. Fortunately the rest of the ensemble cast make the most
of their supporting roles by lending winking humor and reliable
nuance to parts that might otherwise seem like stock caricatures.
Ewan McGregor is charmingly devious as the private black-ops
chief who is Mallory's boss and also her ex-boyfriend. Michael
Fassbender plays an MI6 agent who proves no match for Mallory's
Special Forces training; ditto Channing Tatum, who also
underestimates Mallory's prowess as a lover and a fighter.
Antonio Banderas is a mysterious go-between who plays a crucial
role in the fiasco that comes to be known simply as "Barcelona,"
and Michael Douglas stands tall as an exasperated government
pencil pusher who resents yet can't operate without the help of
private-sector security and intelligence operatives. In spite of
her inexperience, Carano holds the screen with her smoldering
charisma as Soderbergh pours on the tense or languorous action
with wit and skill. Haywire may be a t in the continuing
experimental career of Steven Soderbergh, but it is a delicious
confection nonetheless. --Ted Fry