I was not disappointed, but let’s start here: This is not your typical action movie. While this is Carano’s first entry into this genre, there were plenty of other well-known names, if not big stars. Michael Douglass, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum. It was not pure non-stop action. It seemed more like a drama with action. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. The presentation was somewhat stylized. It lent a pleasant dramatic effect to the action sequences, particularly the chase scenes.
Let’s cover some of my pet peeves first. There are three things I hate in movies. The first and worst is rain at night. For some reason filmmakers love rain at night. They think it is making some grand statement. It is not. All it is doing is confusing the scene. Nothing I say will keep them from doing this but I absolutely hate it. That was not an issue with this movie but I just hate it so much that I had to include it. The next is “shaky cam.” I suppose filmmakers think this adds a sense of realism to fight scenes. Again, it doesn’t but they still think it does. It's real function seems to be covering up for poor fight choreography. This was the only bad thing about the Bourne movies, btw. Haywire contains a few brief “shaky cam” sequences which irritate me but, thankfully, they were short enough to not cause major problems. The third thing I hate is breaking glass in fight scenes. Why must this be a part of every fight sequence in film? Don’t you think that is just a bit overused? This first started to annoy me watching Steven Seagal films in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Every time two people get in a scuffle they have to be crashing through huge amounts of glass. Maybe filmmakers love the sound it makes. But let’s get real. How can you repeatedly slam someone’s face into glass shelves, vases, dishes, bottles, goblets, and such without seeing any blood? Get real. The only purpose this serves is to annoy. Just stop doing it. Okay? One of the fight scenes in a hotel room in Haywire has this breaking glass stuff. Aarrrgh!
Now I have told you everything negative about this film. Everything else about this movie was fantastic. Mallory Kane (Carano) works for an agency run by a man named Kenneth (Obi-Wan—oops!—I mean Ewan McGregor). Kenneth does contract work for messy situations people need fixed. Mallory is his star employee. So much so that people begin to request that she be part of a job or there will be no contract. Kenneth becomes concerned lest she leave his company and take his clients with her.
Kenneth gets a request for a job from two gentlemen named Coblenz (Douglass) and Rodrigo (Banderas). Rodrigo, it turns out, has ulterior motives. Coblenz I can’t figure out so you need to watch this and tell me what his role is. Anyway, Coblenz insists on Mallory as a condition of the contract. And since he is paying eight figures, he feels he should have some say in that matter. While Kenneth is surprised that Coblenz's concerns extend to personnel issues in his company, he agrees to free Mallory up. Naturally, she pulls off the job including tying up a loose end. That is why they like her.
Kenneth shows up at her place some time later to ask her to help with another job. She would be working with Paul, an MI6 agent (Fassbendor). This is where the intrigue begins as she is set up and barely gets away with her life. The rest of the film sees her running from bad guys or trying to track down the bad guys who set her up.
As I mentioned earlier, I was hoping that Carano’s MMA experience would lend realism to the fight scenes. Boy, did that come through in spades. The reason I saw this film twice was that when my wife arrived home she asked what I did. I told her I saw Haywire. She said she wanted to see it so I took her that evening. Her comment coming out of the movie was how realistic the fight scenes were compared to Angelina Jolie. Carano is muscular but not in an unfeminine way. It is just that she has some mass to her and is not a skinny little Hollywood waif. She is by no means fat; she is just extremely athletic. She actually looks like she could kick someone without breaking her leg. This lends a tremendous amount of realism to the fight scenes. On top of this, the fights are not choreographed as if they were a ballet. They look gritty and nasty. Chokes, kicks to joints, a bit of grappling. In a word: real.
The action is great. The plot is complex. It improved on the second viewing.
Grade: A-. I will definitely be buying this when it comes out on DVD.
As an aside, I have a fantasy now. I want to see a movie with Carano and Jason Statham. They could be enemies or colleagues. I don’t care. I just want to see them on the same screen together. Perhaps she could reprise her Mallory Kane character in Transporter 4. She and Frank Martin could be thrown together by circumstances and wind up beating up all the bad guys in Europe. Just a thought.
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