Haywire

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Movie Details

• Genre: Action/Adventure, Suspense/Thriller
• Release Date: 2012-01-20 Nationwide
• Running Time: 93 min.
• Director: Steven Soderbergh
• Cast: Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Gina Carano, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Michael Angarano, Mathieu Kassovitz, Julian Alcaraz
• Producer: Gregory Jacobs, Ryan Kavanaugh
• Writer: Lem Dobbs
• Distributor: Relativity Media
• Official Site: Haywire Official Site

Haywire's plot is boilerplate triple-cross, cloak-and-dagger stuff — but the action choreography by director Steven Soderbergh and MMA fighter Gina Carano puts the impact back into screen violence. After a setup, ex-Marine Mallory Kane (Carano) goes rogue from her job as hired muscle for a private government subcontractor, looking for answers from her boss and former lover, Kenneth, played by Ewan McGregor. The rest of his network is played by famous faces — Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender — but Haywire is very much a vehicle for Carano, appearing in her first film. The casting is more than a stunt, for Haywire makes full use of her particular physical capabilities in combats of rib-cracking resonance. Carano is also photogenic; this is important because Haywire is, after a fashion, a slapstick-violent, mercenary sex comedy, with Mallory getting romantically involved with each of her major combatants in turn. The highlight combat-duet is a parody of a swank first date in which the aggressive male gets more than he bargained for in the bedroom, concluding in a smothering thigh lock that leaves its victim with a priceless sated and insensate expression before his black widow goodnight kiss. This is a real war-of-the-sexes tournament, briskly paced with a tickling sense of dark humor.