Haywire (2012)

If Matt Damon had been Bourne with a vagina then he’d be the star of Haywire, Steven Soderbergh’s frantic new recruit to the Hollywood action movie genre. Always the great experimentalist who has assaulted any number of generic arenas with his rejuvenating approach to the form, it looks to me as if Steven had become exasperated with the conventions of the modern action movie and decided to throw his beret into the disoriented ring with this enormously entertaining and exciting movie, what it may lack in depth or substance is camouflaged with an unadorned visual purity and epinephrine pulsing gait that left me breathless and exhausted as the credits began to roll. The film arrives at a felicitous time following the recent adoration of this optical article (here’s the second dossier) which charts the genre’s alleged recent descent, whatever your thoughts on the authors assertions that’s an impeccably executed thesis which argues for cohesion over chaos, for definition over destruction, the audible concerns with Nolan’s soon to be completed trilogy may just inspire a symmetrical trifecta. In a similar stroke (if you’ll excuse the expression) of casting real life porn star Sasha Gray* as the high-class call-girl of the unfairly maligned The Girlfriend Experience, in Haywire Soderbergh  pulls an identical trick (if you’ll excuse the expression) by casting real life mixed martial art champion Gina Carano in the central role, a casting Coup d’état which exposes a central heroine without any baggage or preconceived notions, unless I guess you’re au fait with the testosterone aligned world of Ultimate Fighting  and all that homo-erotic sweaty grappling. As much as I throughly enjoyed Mission Impossible IV  a few weeks back this defeats that mega-production with an insurgents deadly improvisation, so let’s get into this hazy world of espionage and combat….

With an opening sortie at a chilly Colorado diner (see below) and then rarely depressing the brakes, Haywire charts the adrenaline fuelled antics of Mallory (Carano), a dusky eyed, privatised, covert operations specialist who finds herself betrayed and on the run following a possible double cross by her buzz-cut, supercilious corporate handler Kenneth (that’s Ewan McGregor with yet another unmoored accent) in a deadly game of cat and mouse that spans the Atlantic. Unspooling within the confines of Soderbergh’s trademark tampering with continuity and continuum, after the extraction of a Chinese dissident from the clutches of his Barcelona situated kidnappers Mallory receives a new assignment which sees her transitioning to Dublin, playing wingwoman to a slightly murky MI6 plot to, well, I’m not entirely sure what  she was doing in Ireland, other than impersonating the recently wedded wife of British intelligence agent Paul (Michael Fassbender, superb as always) she soon discovers that both commissions are linked and her status as an independent asset have been lethally compromised. A starry crop of supporting players are exposed as the film charges on, from Michael Douglas as a senior Intelligence комисса́ , from Bill Paxton as Mallory’s encrypted father, and Antonio Banderas as a suspiciously bearded foreign mediator, they battle with Mallory at their peril as I believe she has recently been included in the Oxford Encyclopedia Dictionary definition of ‘broads with whom one does not fuck with’;

Sometimes a movie experience urges me to abandon the film critic conventions of a measured and studious tone, so let me make this perfectly clear – this film was Fucking Awesome. It’s not often I find myself compelled to see a film at the movies twice, that’s an achievement that’s been inspired by only a few films over the past couple of years (Tree Of Life  for example was the only film that achieved entry to that lofty plateau in 2011) but this was such direct and unexpurgated fun that I’m already planning a repeat performance. It’s light, its breezy, devoid of any domineering political or social subtexts, like The Artist  it’s more an exercise in chiffon technique and style, but sometimes that exterior ambition is enough to secure a permanent smirk over a compact and enthralling 90 minute run-time. The action sequences – and there are just about the right amount without signalling themselves as ‘set-piece’ time as they are organically embroidered into the films relentless forward momentum – are not shattered into incomprehensible shards, they are all photographed with enough temperance, distance and a crucial pace to make the spacial and timing definitions crystal clear, and consequently the stakes for survival and your contract with Mallory’s quest are impeccably elevated. I’ve heard rumours of disgruntled film fans bemoaning Carano’s acting prowess and this discontent should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves, she’s no thespian for sure but she does muster a genuine and dexterous on-screen presence that stainlessly clots with the movies surface ambitions, just as a few touches of make-up unrealistically counterfeit the bruises of Mallroy’s energetic engagements. 

Under the veiled and concealed cinematographer pseudonym of Peter George, a union enforced proviso that always plays well in movie trivia quizzes, Soderbergh exfoliates the piece with a cautiously beautiful, simultaneously warm and icy glow through his usual deployment of aureate and cobalt filters with just enough suppression to accentuate the drama without descending into a Tony Scott or Paul W.S. Anderson visual morass, and frequent collaborator David Holmes is on sonic duties with a jaunty, perky and casually whimsical score which reminds us that this should all be considered as a bit of stimulating frivolity, if you appreciated the Ocean’s Eleven  harmonics  then you’re on the right side. Even the exposition scenes, the textbook ‘lets explain the plot’ fractions are approached from an oblique shooting angle, without attracting unwelcome attention to themselves Soderbergh keeps things fresh and engaging through an oscilliating rhythm that bounces from Europe to North America as the back story and current threat is coetaneously revealed. I love the films aura of unrelenting anxiety with its sense of explosive violence striking at any moment, yet unlike the other mercenaries in the action movie garrison the film never feels out of control or inflicting deleterious destruction without rhyme or reason, heck it even slightly slows down in its final operations with a flash of Soderbergh’s cheeky humor, I’ll certainly enlist for another assignment as this could easily be the first in a high-voltage, invigorating franchise. Slightly more enjoyable than your senses being pummeled with a sock full of celluloid snooker balls, (an experience which seems to encompass most action film these days), in the midst of the award season with Oscar seeking fare littering the multiplexes Haywire is better than babysitting a juvenile guerrila, more a female Spartan than a suckish, err, Punch,  this is a terrific movie and here’s the first five minutes;

*Find your own links you fucking pervert.