20130617: Action Film Review--Haywire

Haywire

1. American live action theatrical film, released 2011, rated R, 92 minutes; spy thriller, action and adventure, revenge film.  Steven Soderbergh directed.
2. IMDB rated it 5.9/10.0 for 54,711 users; blurb--'A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.'
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 80% (seems way too high) from critics; 6.7/10 from 179 user reviews.  More tellingly, 40% rating from 40,262 ticket buying audience members.
4. Filmed in New Mexico US, Dublin IR, and Barcelona ES.
5. Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender--leads (in the billing, anyway)
6. Also, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum
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8. Gina Carano is a 'top rated female MMA fighter' as one reviewer put it.  I think she should have stayed with 'reality' fighting.  She might be more convincing there.  The foley for the fights was usually off to the extent that I was certain that no blows were ever landed, just as in 'reality' fighting.  The foley defeated any chance of this being an engaging action film since everything was clearly faked.
9. Channing Tatum comes across as he usually does, as an irredeemable thug/uncivilized bully/blunt instrument/sociopath.  He shows a moment of thoughtfulness toward the end of the film, and is immediately shot for it, fatally, as it turned out.
10. Ewan MacGregor's character was flaccid and malevolent at the some time.  Perhaps that was what he was aiming for.
11. Antonio Banderas had very little screen time.  In the end, though, he was the one who pulled all the puppet strings.  I did not buy that one either.
12. Michael Fassbender gave a short performance as an ineffectual betrayer working for MI6.  Looks like he was an actor who 'fit the suit' for the role, and was not needed for anything else.
13. Michael Douglas was sleazy and smooth as a Gordon Gecko type.  He was hard to believe as the only source of possible official redemption for the protagonist.
14. Bill Paxton was the only actor I liked in this film. He played the straight arrow father of the protagonist who believed in his daughter and supported her, no matter what sequence of lies was fed to him.
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16. The sound track was regularly annoying and anti-relevant.  Gunshots, for instance, should be a bit louder than conversation.  In some sequences, they were softer than footsteps, and nearly drowned out by the low-volume 'music.'  The techno-crap music was horrid.  It often served to convince me that what I was watching was of no importance, as well as of no emotional significance.  This was all a dreary intellectual exercise in fakery and treachery. The fakery--fake fighting, fake motives, fake stories--made the treachery a lot less believable.
17. The cinematography was also repugnant.  The over use of yellow (tungsten lights, yellow filtration) was rampant in the interior shots, as well as several exteriors.  There were dozens of fast cuts between the yellow palette and more natural scenes, such as Dublin on a cloudy day, or long shots of nature in New Mexico.  These jarring juxtapositions made me itch for the movie to be done.
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19. This film deeply eroded my overall admiration of Soderbergh as a director.
20. I rated this film as two stars of five.

Cinematography: 4/10 This was a major detriment.  See above.

Sound: 4/10  Another major detriment.

Acting: 4/10 Some good, mostly indifferent or bad.

Screenplay: 2/10 Too many flashbacks, too many tricks.