Review of Haywire (2011) by Christopher Llewellyn R — 02 Nov 2012

To those of you who have seen the documentary "Side by Side," in which Steven Soderbergh takes such a triumphalist stance in favor of new digital technologies over the former glories of film, I hold this film up as Exhibit A for the defense. While Soderbergh has proven himself time and again as a master artist and technician, in this film he is neither. It is the latter failing that is most shocking, as even when Soderbergh has made such stylistically off-putting films as "Bubble" and, to some degree, "The Limey," he has nevertheless demonstrated a strong command of the technologies at hand. Here, however, he shows that even a film shot on a RED camera can be ugly, with blown-out white pixels, and display a terribly designed color palette. To top it all off, the sound recording often seems as if it was being done with a single boom mic that is too far away from the actors.

The real problems with the film lie not with its technical failures, though, but rather with its silly underdeveloped script and even less developed characters. It doesn't help that almost none of the actors are giving watchable performances. It seems as if Soderbergh - who operates the camera on his own projects - was too preoccupied with creating putrid visuals to focus on the talent. Ironically, the best actor in the film is actually the novice, Gina Carano. According to her, her voice was "tweaked" in post-production. Well, whether it was or not, she nevertheless possesses a fine screen presence, and is the only one not chewing up scenery. I liked her, and she is the reason the film gets two stars, rather than just one.

The problems with this film do not lie with the digital technologies - there are plenty of lovely films shot on the RED - but in the apparent lack of any workable aesthetic sensibility behind the camera. So Soderbergh, before you start talking about the death of film, why not spend a few moments reminding yourself that what really counts is storytelling and craft, regardless of medium. The new does not necessarily guarantee good work, and your triumphalism may be blinding you to that which is important: good filmmaking.