Haywire

Last year the increasingly idiosyncratic Steven Soderbergh gave us Haywire, a sleek, sophisticated spy film built around a novice performer, Gina Carano, heretofore an MMA fighter. The result is oddly compelling, even if Carano is like a void in the center of an otherwise experienced cast.

Making a film about a female action star using an actual athlete is a great idea. Sometimes, seeing the skeletal Angelina Jolie, you have to wonder if she could punch her way out of a paper bag. You don't have to think that with Carano, a muscular fireplug. She plays Mallory Kane, an operative with a private company who is contracted out to the government. She has been on a job in Barcelona, extracting a Chinese dissident from captivity. Something goes wrong, though, and her employer tries to eliminate her.

The film is built around Carano's strengths, as there are several fight scenes. The most elaborate is with Michael Fassbender in the middle of the picture, which signals a turn in the plot, but was prominently featured in the advertising for the picture. I wonder if I didn't know this was coming it would have made the film more enjoyable. Anyhow, the two go at it in a Dublin hotel room, bouncing off the walls, breaking TV sets, and putting holes in doors. It's great stuff.

Unfortunately, Carano is not much of an actress. Soderbergh had to dub her voice (he unflatteringly uses a deep voice that sounds like a female impersonator) and she only has a couple of facial expressions. This is compounded by the galaxy of stars around her, such as Ewan MacGregor as her boss and ex-lover, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, and Antonio Banderas. Channing Tatum is a colleague, but his wooden expression doesn't do Carano any harm.

I do recommend the picture, though, as I thought it would just be a gimmicky quickie, but it grew on me as it proceeded. You have to hand it to Soderbergh--he doesn't make what you expect, but it's usually always interesting.