Haywire's a knockout.

Haywire @ LA Film School

The Movie: 4 of 5 Kernels

This action packed romp, keeps the pace sizzling and surrounds its physically dynamic ingénue with a top flight cast and lets her kick their asses.

The Pop: 4 of 5 Kernels

Harry and David’s dry fruit.

The Film

            Any new Soderberg film is a call for rejoicing, but I especially look forward to his pulpy flicks. B-movies in most hands get elevated to art house cool under Soderberg’s direction. His range is as impressive for its distinctive stamp as for its sheer quality. Now with his latest film he’s combining his great casting sensibility with his ability to razzle dazzle and proves that he knows how to create a taut action thriller. Throw in a script by Lem Dobbs to keep the pieces in place and you get a great ride of a movie.

            The film centers on Mallory, a tough as nail spy for hire. A woman, but it’s a mistake to think of her as one. Mallory is hired to free a political prisoner, everything goes as planned. However as soon as she gets home she’s begged to go on another assignment by her boss and former lover. She relents and ends up being double crossed. Mallorys in the cold alone, she has to find a way to get back to America and get revenge on the people who set her up.

            So the film does have a solid espionage thriller plot, but it avoids getting too preachy or complicated. Instead it aims dead center down the middle to keep the mission clear and the bad guys quaking. I really appreciate when a film really knows what it is and what its trying to do, sure the plot has echoes of Blackwater and secret armys, and international intrigue, but it knows that’s not why we came to see the movie, we came to watch a hero.

            And what a hero do we get to watch. Gina Carrano, an MMA cage fighter, has got the physical goods and the acting instincts to go along with them. She’s not going to win an Oscar anytime soon for her riveting peformance, but if she can find more pieces that highlight her physical attributes and let her build her chops she could easily be a rising star. As it is her fight scenes are great rough and tumble throw downs, but the girls got some real moves that take her into the action, rather then artfully skirting around it.  Editing also inevitably saves the day, there are some real “animalistic” moments and reactions from Carrano that show you flashes of a raw talent waiting to be sculpted.

            To talk about the lead we have to talk about her great supporting cast, a who’s who’s of great actors. Fassbender, McGregor, Douglas, Banderas, even Channing Tatum and Michael Angarano deliver the goods. Each of them give Mallory something solid and real to react to and elevate the entire film to something worth watching. Watching Mallory terrify, attack and submit the motley crew is worth the price of admission, apparently several of the action scenes were re-shoot additions, but they place the film at the top of its genre for combining solid story telling with solid fight choreography.

            Soderberg has always been a one of a kind filmmaker and now he’s become an even better populist filmmaker, but its great to see him always pushing himself. He’s never one to rest on his laurels, except for his few sequels each project feels like an evolution a chance for him to tell a new kind of story about a new kind of character. My only slight qualm might be that Soderberg’s wonderful simplicity, and individuality robbed us of some of the classic tropes of martial arts film such as the “boss” fight and the “karate school” fight, the typical fights where the protagonist is most challenged either by the sheer power of her opponent or the sheer size and number of them. Mallory goes through the film relatively unscathed, but that’s part of what makes her and the film so cool.

The Corn

I got to see this film at Jeff Goldsmith’s wonderful screening series. Its always a good time, but they don’t serve food, I snuck in some dried fruit because I between the hour wait in line, 2 hour movie and hour and a half q&A that’s about a 4-5 hour commitment. The whole dried fruit pieces are quite good, even if they don’t compare to Kirklands.

*Funny side note: the interview after the film was with Gina Carrano the star, she was quite different from her bad ass character, more of a giggly girl, kind of enchanting in her own right, but a bit of a trip to think about when considering the film and a testament to her performance.