Friday, Jan. 27, 2012

The Big Screen: 'Haywire' kicks up stylish fun

Steven Soderbergh's "Haywire" is a simple, guilt-free, sexy action thriller. Far from the intellect of his Oscar- winning "Traffic" or the mainstream appeal of the "Ocean's 11" franchise, "Haywire" is a globe-trotting B-movie with a unique attraction: a female heroine who goes mano a mano versus her all-male cast.

This is the perfect debut for mixed martial arts star Gina Carano; she is probably the only woman who can believably take a face full of hot coffee, a jab to the nose and still manage to beat up her opponent, in this case the slightly less capable Channing Tatum. This is how we meet Mallory, our heroine. She arrives at a diner in upstate New York, where she meets Aaron (Tatum) who has been asked to take her back to Kenneth (Ewan McGregor).

Typical of a Soderbergh film, the editing moves back and forth through time. We learn that Mallory is a freelance covert operative hired to perform jobs that governments would rather not get caught up in. She was hired last to rescue a dissident Chinese journalist in Barcelona. She is sent to a mission in Dublin as the eye candy of MI-6 agent Paul (Michael Fassbender). The mission goes wrong when she realizes she's been double-crossed and that Paul has been hired to kill her. Paul and Mallory destroy an upscale hotel room and provide the film's greatest fight scene.

That is exactly what this film boils down to. It lacks the sophisticated plot of a film like "Out of Sight" or the emotional weight of his smaller "Sex, Lies and Videotape," but none of that matters. This thriller derives its pleasure from well-choreographed fight scenes. Just as Tarantino did in his "Kill Bill" series, Soderbergh trades out weaponry for hand-to-hand combat.

Carano holds her own against Fassbender, McGregor, Tatum, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas. It's hard to tell which stunts are real and which are not, but hopefully this is the beginning of a new action star.