Cinematography,
music selection, and direction go a very long way in setting up a good movie.
Haywire fails in all of these aspects and succeeds in making international
espionage completely boring. Its especially interesting that its coming from
Steven Sodenbergh, the director of Ocean’s Eleven remake. On the other hand, he
made Ocean’s 12 and 13, so maybe that’s been sapping away at his talent.
Gina
Carano plays Mallory Kane, a field agent for a private espionage firm
consulting with the government who gets burned by her handlers. Standard faire
for producing chases, gunfights and fist fights, with tense situations about as
the spies try to outmaneuver each other.
Sound:
almost none of the build-up to tense scenes feature any music whatsoever, it
usually just involves standing or walking. The action happens suddenly, but its
still broadcast without any surprise. The other music is haphazardly chosen and
placed in random scenes. The soundtrack sounds like something taken from a
quiet cheesy 70s B movie. Its boring, and its used as a backdrop behind boring
flat conversations.
Cinematography:
the shots are extremely static, often using a wide shot, with no movement at
all and only a few angles during the fight scene. One shootout between police
SUVs uses only a single wide shot that shows almost none of the action and
makes the scene look exceptionally fake. I’ve seen 10 year olds on the
playground act better shootouts.
Direction:
This is Gina Carano’s first major film, after a career as a female MMA fighter,
so no one is expecting a particularly nuanced performance out of her, but what
is surprising is how flat everyone else is in this film. Michael Douglas,
Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas and Channing Tatum all act
like they’ve just finished the first script read-through and they’re still
reading the lines as if written on cue cards in front of them. There is zero
emotional investment, and even when the characters are in danger, none of them
seem particularly troubled, scared, or particularly agitated.
Granted,
Ocean’s Eleven dialogue comes off as flat, but the movie benefited from quick
cuts, multiple scenes occurring at once, and George Clooney being able to say
his lines with a certain amount of quirky charm that he always possesses. This
film comes off as a guy who wants to make slow paced “indie” films but got
stuck making an action film.
The
single redeeming quality of the film is the actual fighting. It is refreshing
to see a female actress who clearly knows how to fight. Her MMA skills are on
clear display as a no-frills brutal style featuring Muay Thai and Brazilian
Jujitsu amongst other elements.
There
are plenty of bad action and spy films, and they can be enjoying in their own
way. Hell, I’ve been to Bad Movie clubs were terrible action films reign
supreme (I’m looking at you Crack 2). But Sodenbergh committed the gravest sin
of directing a spy or action movie; he made it boring.
I will say though, for a woman who could kill you without breaking a sweat,
Gina Carano is very pretty.
