For me, the opening scene of a film is like the first sentence of a novel, it’s first shot being the first word, and both have to grab you instantly with something inspiring or quirky or dramatic. Starting a novel with a word as bland as ‘the’ is not exactly going to peak your interest (the exception to this is if it is necessary for an awesome sentence to make sense) and the first shot of ‘Haywire’ was definitely a ‘the’. When neither this nor the following scene particularly thrilled me I immediately had a bad feeling about this film.
Usually I have read a few snippets of articles or synopsis or at least watched the trailer several times before I go to see a movie but for once I walked into the cinema not really knowing very much. From my brief viewing of the trailer I guessed it was going to follow along the same lines as the film ‘Salt’, a gorgeous girl with kick ass fighting skills gets screwed over by the people she works for and generally shows all the men how to get things done. As it turns out that synopsis is pretty accurate; black ops super soldier Malory (Gina Carano) is set up by the very people she works for and attempts to both find the truth and exact payback. In concept it sounds as good as ‘Salt’ but in execution it was not.
For starters the plot turned out to be a little weak, it mainly centred around the question “So what the hell did happen in Barcelona?!”, one that came to a conclusion fairly near the end and to be honest the answer was rather anti-climactic. Another part of the film that didn’t entirely make sense was the fact that she told her whole story to a stranger whose car she borrowed for a get away in the first scene so that he could pass it on to someone else but then this eventually trailed off to nothing and effectively just served the purpose of Malory telling the audience about Barcelona, something that could have been done by a simple flashback. It was also strange to see a film with barely any dialogue. Seriously, the script must have been twenty pages long at the most! Some of the lines were pretty awful as well, some of the worst being “You better run” and “Freeze punk!” Who says these things? EVER…seriously?
The worst part however was the extended scenes of the running. Perhaps Steven Soderbergh was trying to give the film a ‘real time’ feel but personally I didn’t feel it worked. If I had been watching the movie at home my attention would have drifted and facebook would most certainly be on. It was like seeing all the boring parts of being a secret agent – the running, hiding, reversing to dodge the police, more running, climbing over rooftops, running again – these scenes just lasted too long.
Now saying all this, I don’t want you to think that ‘Haywire’ is as bad as it’s title. It may have had a weak plot, only fifteen or so lines and seemed a little drawn out in areas but it has its good points too. The filters used (i.e. filming in black and white and sepia tones) gave the film an individual style and really impressed me. Also watch out for the scenes in the barn, they are very artistic and look more like a series of photographs that should be in an art gallery with the unusual props artistically arranged in the background combined with tilted and low camera angles.
I was also impressed that despite having about three lines each, the actors made up a rather well known cast including Ewan McGregor (known from ‘Moulin Rouge’, ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’,‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’), Antonio Banderas (known from ‘Spy Kids’ and ‘The mask of Zorro’), and Micheal Fassbender (known from ‘300’, ‘X Men First Class’, ‘Inglorious Bastards’). I’ve said that this wasn’t necessarily a bad film (just one I personally didn’t enjoy) but if the actors had been bad I believe this film would have been truly terrible, luckily though, as you can see from the names, this was not the case and the acting was one of the aspects that held the film afloat.
‘Haywire’ is basically a film about a vengeance-fuelled agent on the run (literally running, for about half the film) punctuated by fight scenes, a dying deer and four lines. If your like me and prefer a thrilling, fast paced story with a well written script and complex storyline then maybe this film isn’t for you. However if you’re interested in excellently choreographed fight scenes, a range of talented actors and a modest plot that won’t leave you in a muddle then this is the film for you. Taking an objective view I would rate this film at 3*.
But subjectively, it’s more like a 1.5*.
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