Review of Haywire (2011) by Halfwelshman — 26 Jan 2012

I mostly blame the marketing team of Haywire - they'd convinced me I was going to get something between Bourne and Nikita, and I didn't. I accept that's not what the film ever aimed to be, but because of the misleading trailers and publicity I can't help but feel a little duped.

What Haywire actually is, is a pretty old-fashioned slow-burning spy movie with the occasional bone-crunching fight scene to savour. All due credit to Steven Soderbergh, the film is shot beautifully (particularly the Dublin sequence), has some nice stylistic touches, and the film as a whole isn't anywhere near as far up its own backside as some of his previous directorial efforts (Ocean's films I'm looking at you!).

Gina Carano makes a decent, confident protagonist, and her mixed martial arts background makes the various scrapes that Mallory Kane gets into extremely creative, brutal and entertaining to watch. Michael Douglas also appears to relish his role as a high-ranking government agent, and his performance as an authority figure is very believable now that he's the spitting image of his dad.

The rest of the cast I found a little underwhelming, with Ewan McGregor and Channing Tatum coasting, Antonio Banderas playing Antonio Banderas, and Michael Fassbender, though continuing to prove himself as a decent character actor, still slips back into his natural Irish lilt now and again.

The actors' failings may have been overlooked had the script been decent, but Lem Dobbs' dialogue leaves a lot to be desired, and is probably the element that detracts most from the film as a whole. The pace of the film is extremely uneven too, and no matter how interesting Soderbergh makes his numerous long takes, you may find yourself pining for a few more all-out scraps.

Maintaining a shot for the sake of tension only works up to a point, and after he pulled this trick for the third or fourth time I found my attention waning. I also found the conclusion to this story, which started so well, completely underwhelming.

It may be good-looking, well-choreographed, and well-told up until the final act, but in the end, I found Haywire a little lifeless, and occasionally quite dull.