Review of Haywire (2011) by Homereviewer — 02 May 2012

If Soderbergh was going for a female Bourne type character, a Ted Lewis type thriller and a Louis Leterrier action genre, all the while keeping it Soderbergh, he succeeded. Gina Carano makes Angelina Jolie, Zoe Saldana and Jennifer Garner appear to be cartoon characters when it comes to fight scenes, and I like all three of them.

She has the physique that makes her believable as a former special ops character; the parsimonious dialogue and superb fight choreography was a wise choice, Carano has not yet earned her chops as actor for her to get more than she had to speak here.

If you're looking for a smart action thriller, a movie fix you need to satisfy from time to time, this movie should do the job. The movie starts and ends abruptly with one spoken word, the same word; that one word at the beginning takes one fight scene, a minute or so into the movie, no less striking than in the Bourne movies, to realise how well chosen it was.

At the end, when the bad guy simply sees Carano and utters that word, you don't need to see another fight scene, you can imagine it vividly; that's the mark of a smart script and directing.