Haywire is the second of two films of Soderbergh's released within five months of each other (the first was a hypochondriac's nightmare, the biological thriller Contagion). It is an action thriller starring MMA fighter Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, a privatized special ops agent betrayed by her boss for unknown reasons.
The film also stars several big names including Ewan McGregor as Kenneth, Carano's boss and former lover, Channing Tatum as Aaron, a fellow agent of Kane's, and Michael Fassbender as Paul, an associate of Kenneth's. Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas are also in the mix.
The film is everything that as a classic Soderbergh film should be: evenly paced, retro in style and a minimalist's dream. He is one of very few filmmakers who has a gift for not being confined to a specific genre. He has tackled heavy drama, experimental, the heist/caper film, thrillers, comedies and so on. As stated above, Haywire is an action thriller and it is probably the most purely shot action film of recent memory.
The problem with most of the Hollywood produced action films coming out in this day and age is that they pander to impatient and borderline ADD audiences. The action sequences in these films are beyond awful because one can never tell what is going on. Shot cuts to shot every half-second and what could be an excellent action sequence is devolved into a mess of unintelligible punching sound effects.Haywire takes its action sequences and does the exact opposite. Soderbergh sets the camera back and captures the fight as it is, with the cuts far and few between. What sets these sequences far above the competition is the absence of music. The score, done by David Holmes (The Ocean's Trilogy), lends an ambient and '70s inspired feel to the film, but Soderbergh has left the fight scenes empty of music, giving them a sense of intimacy and heightened realism.
Not everyone is going to like this film. In fact, there is a greater chance that a majority of audiences will dislike it. This is because audiences still aren't used to Soderbergh's rogue style of filmmaking. It doesn't help that he's always tweaking his system with each new film. Go into this film with patience and don't focus on the why of it all. Just enjoy the ride.
Haywire - 3.5/5
