Haywire

I just saw Haywire on Saturday. It exceeded my expectations. Gina Carano delivered as expected in all the fight scenes, but her acting was also solid enough. She played a deadpan hardcase, so she didn't need to use a whole lot of emotion. And she's gorgeous and so incredibly sexy (love Hot Amazon women), so that makes it even better.

Her supporting cast was of course fantastic, with Ewan Mc Gregor playing an understated villain with a sort of businesslike evil. Channing Tatum said his lines convincingly enough, but as usual didn't have much of a screen presence. Michael Fassbender was great, as were Michael Douglas and Bill Paxton. Antonio Banderas hammed it up in his Spanish accent, every line much more dramatic than necessary and all the better for it.

Really, my favorite thing about the movie is the realism.

• The fight scenes: Gina Carano is the first actress I've ever seen in a film who convincingly whipped ass on a bunch of men. Usually the leading lady is some stick-thin waif like Zoe Saldana in that Colombiana abortion. Watching Saldana beat the shit out of a man twice her weight with dubious kung fu moves (where the fuck does a Colombian hit man learn that shit anyway?) broke my suspension of disbelief, to say nothing of double-fisting Uzis and all the other absurd gunplay. Carano, on the other hand, is 150 pounds of powerful, beautiful woman, and watching her take down her antagonists in Haywire was completely believable. As an excellent MMA fighter with a 7-1 record, she does all her own stunts, and this is real fighting, boys and girls. No silly shit with hand towels or rolled up newspapers, she beats down her enemies with hands, feet, elbows, and the sexiest triangle choke ever captured on film.

• The gunplay: All the players in this film know how to handle guns, as they should according to their respective professions. No Improbable Aiming Skills here, just realistic, trained shooting by everyone. The gunfights are still riveting without all the extra flair. No Pretty Little Headshots, either. In one scene her enemies find a dead mercenary with a nice hole in his head and pulped brain matter and skull pieces splattered all over a nearby car windshield.

• The explosions: Nothing is Made of Explodium in this film, and there are no Impressive Pyrotechnics. When C4 is used, it goes off with that realistic "whump," a shower of debris and a cloud of dust. No cars explode, either, despite being riddled with bullets. In fact, there isn't a single MOAB-style explosion for our heroine to walk away from. It's okay, she's as badass of an Action Girl as you could ever hope to see.

Anybody else see it? What did you think?

If you didn't, do yourself a favor and go watch it this week.

edited 23rd Jan '12 1:03:33 PM by Martello

I saw it. I agree entirely that Carano shows her off fantastic action chops (she is a former MMA, after all) and is one of the few truly believable female action stars.

The realistic portrayal of... well, just about everything (everything's very subtle and understated compared to the average blockbuster action film; not much hyperbole or hollywood-ization here) is incredibly refreshing and helps the film act as a sort of subversion the run-of-the-mill action thriller. Everything feels palpable and organic. The sparse, usually minutely punctuated music cues help build a sense of immersion.

Soderbergh once again shows himself to be a master of the camera and everything in front of it with some sublime cinematography; something to be expected from him by this point.

To me, this film is Soderbergh's Take That! to the modern film industry's idea of action films and the staples they abide by. The film's gritty realism, minimalistic structure, and fittingly subdued nature in regards to the overall project is just utterly refreshing. This is a really brisk, fun, and very subversive action thriller. I would expect to see more from Carano soon too.

edited 23rd Jan '12 9:43:12 PM by HerrKman

I can't wait to see it, despite only hearing about it a few days ago.

I saw the trailer and thought that it just seemed too much like the fake trailer someone would put out to most blandly and obviously ape modern spy thrillers. I mean that literally. There was one of those in the UK for a while for a road safety campaign. And it's coming out in January?

Now it had Sodenburg and Fassbender (Fassbender, so hot right now) and I was thinking "Well, that trailer did have the smell of cheapness so it could just be all the trailer's fault" but that wasn't a reason to get off my butt and waste my time on it.

But then I learnt more about the lead actress *

edited 23rd Jan '12 10:41:49 PM by SomeSortOfTroper

I liked it, although I had to wonder whether the Xenia-Onatopp leg-choking fight moves were actual kung fu or just there for the fanservice; maybe someone who knows more about martial arts can tell me. Besides that, I agree that the fight scenes felt very realistic.

edited 24th Jan '12 1:29:44 PM by WarriorEowyn

That wasn't kung fu, it was a ju-jitsu triangle choke. It's a very common move in MMA. I've used it many times with about the same results, except no shot to the head when I was done. And it didn't look nearly as hot when I did it.

Carano uses pretty much all Muay Thai and BJJ moves throughout the movie. Some of the kick-off-the-wall moves are decidedly non-standard, but very possible to pull off.

Props to the director, castor, whoever for getting an athlete into a movie. But not enough, I'm still probably not going to watch it just because its yet another movie about the CIA, haven't we seen enough of them already America? Do you really only have three intelligence branches? Well lets see the other two for a change.

I don't think it was about the CIA - the trailers said so, but she seemed to be a private contractor.

^^ Probably because they have fairly specific purposes, and those purposes may not translate well into the basis for a Hollywood story.

Then again, considering the way Follywood tends to mangle things, maybe we should be thankful they don't turn their eye towards those less well-known agencies. I mean, look at what they've done to the NSA for example, turning it into basically a faux-CIA (and like with the CIA, usually the villains of the movie).

And, BTW, if you count the various military intelligence agencies as one big group (if purely for the sake of convenience), there are seven federal departments with intelligence services (some more than one, each handling a specific issue). CIA (independent of a dept), DoD, Dept of Energy, Dept of Homeland Security, Dept of Justice, Dept of State, and Dept of the Treasury. See here for more details.

edited 24th Jan '12 4:12:48 PM by Nohbody

Cider, do yourself a favor and watch it, if only to see the single realistic depiction on film of a hot chick kicking a dude's ass.

The plot's actually pretty good, too. It's nothing revolutionary, but it isn't ultra-cliche either. And yeah, she works for a PMC that's often contracted to the CIA, not the CIA directly. It's subtle, but it makes a major difference on who are the villains and who are the good guys.

Reportedly, much of the film had to be reshot because Carano was kicking too much ass.

The private contraction makes a nice twist on the plot. The action is also shot in a very different way. For example there is a car side shoot out and you know how those are normally shot. One person peaks over vehicle, shots, quick cut to other person shooting over vehicle, back and forth between the fronts of the vehicles with quick cuts to make it snappy and the occasional low shot hidden behind the car. Except here, you get a completely different angle and it stays with the main character behind the car the whole time.

Wait, why does the Treasury department have spies? Americans are weird.

The Treasury department owns the Secret Service. It originally started out as an agency to combat counterfeiters. They still do that, as well as protect the President.

^^ Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Basically tracks and tries to stop funding for terrorist groups, and supports enforcement of embargoes/sanctions.

Also, prior to the big re-organization that resulted in DHS they had the Secret Service, who were involved with stopping counterfeiting and other financial-type crimes as well as their better known "Presidential bullet catcher" role.

^ Secret Service is now under Homeland Security.

edited 24th Jan '12 7:37:28 PM by Nohbody

Oh, well fuck me, hadn't looked them up in a while. Thanks for the correction.

Saw this today. Gina Carano may be the American Michelle Yeoh. She moves like Jackie Chan in his prime and isn't bad looking either.

The film reminded me of thrillers from the 1970's and the supporting cast is great (even Channing Tatum was decent).

Right now a photo of Gina with the camo paint on her face is my phone wallpaper. She's marriage material.

edited 28th Jan '12 7:33:32 PM by Martello

I had no idea you thought so.

Ha ha, you got me.

Interesting. Also, props for getting a girl that's not all waif-y.