Review of Haywire (2011) by Tyson H — 18 Feb 2013

"I'm assuming the motive of everyone involved is strictly professional.".

'Haywire' was a film I missed on release but wanted to watch - not because of it's well received bit because it's by 'Soderbergh' and supposedly a well thought out thriller with great action scenes. But now that I've watched it I can't help but feel disappointed.

The story is standard betrayal stuff which was the biggest disappointment I was led to believe there was more to it than the standard action thriller. But it wasn't it was the usual 'a bunch of people try and frame a person so they can make loads of money and no one will ever know'. Occasionally it can be good even if its been done a thousands times before. It's certainly not terrible it moves along consistently and the things learnt are spaced out nicely but it's occasionally confusing. It jumps from past to present and it doesn't really explain much in the present - particularly about this person she meets he's just there. There are glimpses of a good story buried but there's too much typical and clichéd aspects for my liking. It takes a basic premise and attempts to make more out of it and I can't help but feel had it gone simple it may have benefited from it.

From the trailer it appears that it's action packed with lots of hand to hand combat something I prefer in films - much more interesting than guns, guns, guns. But it's fairly sedated there's some action and some great fight scenes but they were few and far between most of the film entailed her being chased. It was pretty interesting at times to see how she dealt with a situation but after a while it got boring. 'Gina' does a decent job as an actor since it's her first film and I'm sure she'll continue to improve I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. It would be nice to see more femma fatale's there definite lack of them and would help to rejuvenate a poor genre - action.

There's a lack on the films main two fronts - the story is atypical but shows glimpses of something more and the action whilst great there aren't enough action scenes. But it does succeeded to a degree when there is action I was glued and the intrigue towards the end was interesting - it's just a shame it doesn't fully pull off or live up too my expectations.