For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - Haywire
The Impression:
Steven Soderbergh is like any great auteur, a consummate
genre-jumper. Happy to dip his feet in crime, or comedy, or
infection thriller just to use his immense skills to meld it
to his own form. Haywire, Soderbergh’s collaboration
with MMA fighter Gina Carano is his foray in to straight up
action. Paired with Lem Dobbs, his writing cohort on the
amazing The Limey, Soderbergh seems set for another
shot out of the park.
The Reality:
I was stunned at how boring Haywire is. People would
assume that casting an MMA fighter is akin to casting a
wooden block that can kick and punch, but it isn’t Gina
Carano’s acting that stimies the film. Soderbergh, working
as his own DP, crafts a film that hints at a peppy
action/spy caper, but is dragged in to lip-dragging boredom
by it’s cement-booted pace. Gina Carano plays a super secret
agent on her way out of the system but dragged back in after
a mission goes bad. It sounds like the plot of a 90s cable
action movie (especially with the, er, well endowed MMA star
kicking ass at its helm) and Peter Andrews (Soderbergh’s
pseudonym) frames the movie thusly. Grainy color palettes,
digital zooms, poorly composed shots - it seems like some
sort of faulty mix of Soderberg’s early more indie work and
the recent big budget adventures like Ocean’s 11. I
imagined the story itself, though generic in concept, would
zing under the auspices of two talented men like Soderbergh
and Dobbs, but it’s one note with no aspirations to evolve.
Carano is hunted and in turn hunts down a series of bad guys
(all men) whom she promptly puts in there place with a
series of truly jarring moves. Perhaps Soderbergh was
attempting to create a third-wave feminist film, but instead
he glues a bunch of, admittedly, awesome fight scenes on to
a made-for-television script. The moments with Michael
Fassbender (playing an Irish spy) are almost sexy, and his
eventual beat-down is the best in the film. Carano herself
is actually quite charming, though robotic at times, and I
found myself more and more attracted to her as the film
continued. Maybe next time she’ll actually be in something I
can get down with.
The Lesson:
Those who jump genres, don’t always jump correctly.
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