Haywire (Revisited)

Well crap I unintentionally put myself into a corner. After getting so amped for Wonder Woman and making a bunch of lists featuring female bad-assses, I also covered a lot of the things I would normally do for Atomic Blonde. In this case, a fight scene list and a review of the lead's better action movie moments. But since I already did that for Wonder Woman, I thought I would revisit another hand to hand combat heavy espionage movie with a female lead: 2011's Haywire.

Gina Carano plays Mallory Kane, a black ops operative who is contracted by the government to do the dirty jobs official government workers can't be caught doing. But when her latest assignment goes up in flames, Mallory will have to fight her way to freedom and find those responsible to clear her name.

Haywire is the perfect example of a "good enough" action movie. That is to say that the film has enough good qualities to recommend, but not so good to call it a must-watch. Why? Well let's dig a little bit and find out in a bit I'll call Good Part/Bad Part.

Good Part: A Charismatic Collection of Supporting Roles

The list of a famous actors involved in this movie is fairly impressive including a standard Michael Douglas performance, which is always fun, a nice nostalgic look at how to use Bill Paxton correctly, and Antonio Banderas going for a quieter role than usual. And in the fight work we've got Channing Tatum bringing the youthful energy, Michael Fassbender bringing intensity, and Ewan McGregor bringing some shiftiness (this was even how Carano described their fighting styles). It's type-casting up and down the card but when they've only got a scene or two to get right it really works.

Bad Part: An Uninteresting Lead Character

Don't get me wrong. If you need a female fight scene heavy Carano is great (more on this later). But as a leading lady, the movie doesn't give her much to do or express. This may be by design (Carano was far more inexperienced at this point), but when we're supposed to care about her it helps to know things about her and her goals other than: she's our hero and the bad guys are bad. I know this is designed to be minimalistic with dialogue but if we never get to know Mallory we can't care about her.

Good Part: Hard Hitting/Realistic Fight Work

I love these fight scenes. Not just because they emphasized Carano's MMA training, but because they feel intense and intimate and are predominantly one on one affairs against other trained people. Each fight feels very different and you can see Mallory use different techniques and tactics accordingly. Going against Fassbender? Go for haymakers. Going against Tatum? Better find a weapon or out maneuver him. She also doesn't pull off any implausible moves like a never ending spin kick or a flip finish of some sort. Nope here it's well timed kicks and arm bars galore. Which I would like better if....

Bad Part: Stylistically Boring

I suppose the point of this is to demystify action heroes and give us a gritty, lived in action film that doesn't treat each punch like a showstopper. But to my mind, realism works when it's filmed with more panache. Make the impressive moves look more impressive. Shoot things in more light. Give us a soundtrack to compliment it. Hell any soundtrack. Or at least make the impact sounds louder. One bit of slow motion to show off how impressive a particular move is? No. Dammit this is why you don't do action Steven Soderbergh.

Verdict: Fun For the Set Pieces

Sometimes one element of a movie is strong enough to give it a recommendation. And in Haywire's case this gritty approach to fight work paired with a leading lady is enough to make it stand out. For action junkies only though.