Review of Haywire (2011) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

This movie is pretty fast paced and frantic in parts, particularly with the way it starts - there's no ten or twenty minute build up towards the first action scene, more like 2-5 minutes, however its not high action all the way through but it does have a good of action all the same and as far as that's concerned, its quite entertaining and watchable. It features a slick, modern soundtrack - think continental electronic music, or even muzack type sounds like what you might hear in a lift in a corporate building - there always seemed to be a track or instrumental piece playing in the background. I suppose style wise it reminded me of the Bourne movies, particularly considering its set in Europe and features running down old Spanish streets and around cities. I also noticed, reading up about it, that its directed by Steven Soderbergh, who also directed the Ocean's movies (Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve etc.), which makes sense as its somewhat similar in that it attempts to be seen in that sort of slick and stylish way - its a movie that you might expect to see someone like George Clooney appear in, although he doesn't feature, instead the bigger names present in the cast include Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Antontio Banderas and Ewan McGregor.

I found it hard to keep track of the plot in parts, when there's a lot of quick movement during said frantic action scenes. I also noted the low lighting present in parts, to such an extent as the main character, Mallory, almost seems like a ghost or a silhouette but then I suppose thats symbolism for the fact that her true identity is quite hidden but its true to say that viewers are kept in the dark about the details as to what takes place at times. There's also a heavy use of the colour yellow, with some scenes set in hotels with yellow lights providing the only lighting and later on in beach type setting, when the sun was getting low and the skyline is very yellow-y.

I think I felt that this movie was a bit too 'clinical' (for want of a better term) overall. It would certainly have helped had there being more character development - Mallory was too much of an unknown for the majority of the movie, though she certainly comes across as very feisty and strongly independent, someone who will always put up a strong fight of course, which is good. Given one or two decisions she made, I'm not sure if I'd be on her side, although we are introduced to a member of her close family but not a great deal is learnt from that, other than that she doesn't share a lot of details about what she does, with her family. Gina Carano doesn't do a bad job portraying Mallory as the rather cold, calculated and determined character - her facial appearance showing her rebellious nature, although I wouldn't say it was an especially memorable performance but it was capable enough. The rest of the cast all seemed to give decent performances too, although there weren't really any particular stand out moments for me. This movie doesn't really break new ground but its not really the worst of the worst either and indeed when the action got going, I found it quite engrossing, its just a shame I felt the script wasn't quite there.

Category or genre wise, this is a very mysterious movie, infact mystery/spy drama is probably the best description or category I'd give it. It requires you pay attention to try to follow the plot fully. There are certainly some edge of your seat moments but the story behind it is somewhat complicated. Content wise, there's violence and strong language present but nothing greatly explicit. Given the pace of the movie in parts, it may make you jump on ocassion but there isn't a great deal likely to offend the intended audience (this movie carries a 15 rating, for the record).

As far as the movie duration is concerned, this comes in at one hour and thirty three minutes, which is a good length I reckon as it means it doesn't try to go on too long and in doing so, drag things out for an inordinate amount of time, although if it were up to me I would adjust the script somewhat in the first half to cut down some of the slightly tired dialogue but thats just me, anyway I liked that it didn't go on for, say, two and a half hours, as it was easier to follow because it didn't tend to linger on the more tedious scenes for too long.

The ending was rather short but sweet - I suppose you could argue it leaves questions but in a sense its pretty easy for the viewer to guess what would have happened. Overall, the term girl power comes to mind in relation to this movie. Its pretty easy to watch and as I say it has some gripping moments but I wasn't much impressed with some of the dialogue and I felt they'd perhaps tried a bit too hard to make it look overly stylish or stylised, in a way that I felt didn't entirely work.