Shot with a gritty sepia toned look to give a very art house feel to the movie, Haywire works due to the direction of the great Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, Che, etc.). Assisted by the great acting talents of Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas (just to name a few), newcomer Gina Carano and Channing Tatum stepped up their game and achieved cinematic gold.
When you watch Haywire it’s like – who cares who this girl is… she’s athletic, she’s fine, and she takes nothing from anyone. Let’s watch her realistically fight men for an hour and bypass that entire standard Hollywood “pretty her up” bullcrap. I don’t even remember the dialogue as every fight scene took time to register afterwards… your reaction will be: “wait did he just closed fist punch her in the face? Wait, she’s punching him back and… whoa she choked him out with some sort of crab move… geez her legs are scary!”
Gina Carano sells it beautifully, and why not… being a seasoned kickboxer and mixed martial artist, who can actually kick your ass.
The story of Haywire is about a double-cross that was meant to leave a black-ops, government trained professional dead, but instead results in a revenge run of epic proportions. That’s about it… the pacing is lightning fast but the fight choreography is methodical and shot from afar to allow us to see every broken limb and bone jarring punch. In my opinion THIS is what a female action movie should be… no sugar and spice, just bruises and cuts.
It’s the ultimate opener to what I sincerely hope will be a run of Carano beat-em-ups.
While the story was nothing to get excited about (extremely simple and formulaic), the cinematography and most of all, the music is what made Haywire shine. Sure I can write forever on how cool it is to see a man get his ass handed to him via some submission holds but in the end it’s the music that keeps you paying attention.
Haywire skips over the need for suspense music to remind us to get excited or soothing jazz to queue up a love scene; we are given a bunch of upbeat tracks that match the movie’s tone and they allow it to ride out without interruption. It was a kickass journey that was candy to the ears.
Girls Can Fight Too!
No doubt there will be a few people who think that a woman of Gina’s size is unlikely to be doing the things she does in the movie as Mallory. These same people with that opinion may not be fight fans or have done martial arts in the past so I understand the “women can’t fight guys” illusion within their heads. Look at it this way: If a small woman, who is an ex-marine, trained by the government for special operations was to kick YOUR ass, she’d probably do it the way it’s done in this one. Nerding from a couch does not allow you to fathom this premise, trust me I understand. Just take it from someone who has the background to acknowledge this.
While there are many great movies out right now, you may want to check out Haywire for some solid action. While Gina Carano doesn’t strip down naked and smear sex appeal all over the screen, you will be given a wild ride irregardless and come one, isn’t it time that we had a woman who knows how to actually fight whose name isn’t Cynthia Rothrock?
Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.
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