Review: Haywire

‘Don’t judge a film by its trailer’, a phrase that has been repeated to me hundreds of times yet I still lack the ability to avoid trailers influencing my initial judgement of what a film will be like. You would have thought I would have learnt when I went into the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still excited and came out deflated and using the word ‘hate’ to describe it. But no, I continue to let trailers influence me when heading to a film, and the latest victim is Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire.

Haywire begins with Mallory (MMA fighter Gina Carano), a Black Ops soldier, sitting in a roadside café who is shortly joined by Aaron (Channing Tatum) who has been tasked with ‘picking her up’. With little reason why she is to be escorted away we are thrown into a barrage of punches and technical fighting manoeuvres in a brutal fight scene in which Mallory comes out on top and leaves with a complete stranger and a car.

Having successfully gained herself a mode of transportation and a very co-operative and unworried member of the public she proceeds to explain her story. We are then thrust into her world, in which she has been betrayed by those she had been employed by. Tracking across the globe we then re-live her mission in Barcelona and her eventual betrayal in Dublin before tracking her return to the USA for redemption and revenge against those who set her up.

Along the way we experience Mallory at her best, kicking some serious ass and proving that she is one of the best Black Ops soldiers there is. Unfortunately this is one of the only saving graces of a film that lacks ambition, the full abilities of its impressive cast and the adrenaline so often seen in action films.

Of all those present on screen it is indeed newcomer Carano who comes out on top, with her expert fighting skills conveyed brilliantly in some perfectly executed action scenes (most notably the Dublin hotel battle with Michael Fassbender’s Paul) and a confident delivery of her lines. As for the ensemble of screen familiars, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas are underused and hardly worked and Fassbender gives it his best shot with very little offered to him.

As for other aspects of the movie, there are flaws which could have easily been rectified. For one, a misplaced soundtrack does not help the pacing of the film whatsoever. David Holmes’ accompanying music to the film could easily have been inserted straight into one of Danny Ocean’s next ventures and has no place in this flick. Playing out more like montage music than anything, the score lends very little to help progress some scenes which are supposed to be tense and adrenaline-fuelled. Additionally, the decision to not include music to support the fight scenes somewhat falls flat and results in those particular moments in the film appearing odd more than anything else.

It’s obvious director Steven Soderbergh opted for a more realistic edge to the film with some brutal fight scenes and a clear story set out but his first foray into the action genre is far from impressive. With proven actors at his disposal and a promising action lead in place, the pieces of the jigsaw were all set out for this to be a great action flick to kick off 2011 but unfortunately that lack of a cutting edge lets Haywire down. Once again the curse of a decent looking trailer has hit and taken another victim.

Down with Film rating 4/10