Soderbergh fires up action genre with 'Haywire'
"Haywire" begins in a quaint and quiet diner with a couple involved in what sounds like a mundane business discussion when <I>BAM!
</I>They abruptly <I>EXPLODE! </I>into a violent confrontation so viciously executed that it almost stops your heart.
We never see any stunt doubles for these two actors - Gina Carano and Channing Tatum - who assault each other with kicks, punches and gouges in a raw savagery not witnessed on the silver screen since Sean Connery and Robert Shaw's no-stunt-doubles fight to the death inside a claustrophobic train compartment in "From Russia With Love."
"Haywire" sets a new, impossibly high standard for action films by virtue of Steven Soderbergh's savvy genre direction, but mostly because of his amazing leading lady Carano, a mixed martial arts champion fighter and daughter of former Dallas Cowboys' backup quarterback Glenn Carano.
Gina Carano is the ultimate action heroine package. Gorgeous on the scale of Angelina Jolie in "Salt," but imbued with the physicality and speed of Bruce Lee, Carano sprints down streets without breaking a sweat.
She jumps over car hoods with the agility of a gazelle.
She bounces off walls and furniture like Carrie Anne Moss in "The Matrix" - but she doesn't need invisible wires.
She projects such a mesmerizingly confident, poetic and powerful force that her character almost doesn't need a plot to connect her insanely frequent battles-to-the-death with almost every man she meets around the world.
Still, "Haywire" has a streamlined plot written sparingly by Lem Dobbs, who previously wrote "The Limey" and "Kafka" for Soderbergh.
Carano plays CIA troubleshooter Mallory Kane, an ex-Marine who gets the hard jobs other agents apparently can't do. Or won't.
She barely survives her bout with Tatum's CIA agent Henry Aaron at the diner. She escapes by commandeering the car of a wide-eyed onlooker Scott (Michael Angarano) and dragging him along with her.
In the car, she regales her reluctant sidekick with the story of how she came to be at war with the very agents she has been working with.
Before the betrayal.
Cue the expository flashbacks!
For the next 40 minutes we see how Mallory's slithery main contact Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) dispatches her and Henry (her lover!) to Barcelona to rescue an imprisoned Chinese journalist in high "Mission: Impossible" style.
From there it's an assignment to Dublin where Mallory becomes the escort for a dashingly handsome agent named Paul ("Shame" star Michael Fassbender) in an ornate castle the size of Alaska.
The Barcelona and Dublin segments feature rip-roaring, fight sequences that let Carano go Chuck Norris all over her co-stars and battalions of extras. (The Dublin segment also contains a violent reference to Sergio Leone's spaghetti western "For a Few Dollars More.")
While David Holmes' jazzed score pumps up the soundtrack, Soderbergh's lean, fluid, widescreen camerawork (under the pseudonymn of Peter Andrews) seamlessly stitches together Carano's hyper-physical womano-a-mano set pieces that render Jason Bourne's strobe-edited postproduction fight scenes instantly outdated.
Carano is probably not a gifted or versatile actress, but her catlike confidence and ability to take a punch (or a knife blade) without missing a responsive beat create an instant, international action star packing super estrogen.
She receives solid support from co-stars Michael Douglas as a shadowy CIA chief, Antonio Banderas as his grayed-up mystery client and Bill Paxton as Mallory's concerned, understanding father, a former Marine who now writes popular espionage/war novels that don't come close to the thriller story unfolding before his daughter's eyes.
"Haywire" ends with a punchy one-word line of dialogue that sets up one last confrontation we never see.
We don't need to. We already know what's going to happen after the screen goes black.
And we smile.
“Haywire”
★ ★ ★ ½
Starring: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Other: A Relativity Media release. Rated R for violence. 93 minutes