Haywire (2011)

A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.

Director:

Steven Soderbergh

Writer:

Lem Dobbs

Stars:

Gina Carano, Michael Angarano, Ewan McGregor

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gina Carano	...	Mallory Kane
Michael Angarano	...	Scott
Channing Tatum	...	Aaron
Debby Lynn Ross	...	Diner Waitress (as Debby Ross Rondell)
Michael Douglas	...	Alex Coblenz
Antonio Banderas	...	Rodrigo
Ewan McGregor	...	Kenneth
Julian Alcaraz	...	Victor
Eddie J. Fernandez	...	Barroso
Lluís Botella Pont	...	Helpful Guy (as Lluís Botella)
Aaron Cohen	...	Jamie
Max Arciniega	...	Gomez
Anthony Brandon Wong	...	Jiang
Michael Fassbender	...	Paul
James Flynn	...	Hotel Clerk

Storyline

Freelance covert operative Mallory Kane is hired out by her handler to various global entities to perform jobs which governments can't authorize and heads of state would rather not know about. After a mission to rescue a hostage in Barcelona, Mallory is quickly dispatched on another mission to Dublin. When the operation goes awry and Mallory finds she has been double crossed, she needs to use all of her skills, tricks and abilities to escape an international manhunt, make it back to the United States, protect her family, and exact revenge on those that have betrayed her.

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Plot Keywords:

rescue | revenge | punched in the stomach | swat team | shot in the stomach | 

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Taglines:

They left her no choice.

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Genres:

Action | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some violence

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [jp]

Country:

USA Ireland

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

20 January 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

Knockout

Filming Locations:

Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain

Box Office

Budget:

$23,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$8,425,370 (USA) (20 January 2012)

Gross:

$18,934,858 (USA) (16 March 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Relativity Media, Irish Film Board

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat SDDS

Color:

Color Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Dennis Quaid was cast but dropped out due to a scheduling conflict with Soul Surfer. Bill Paxton replaced him.

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Goofs

When Mallory & Scott are driving, she tells him to have a drink of water in her backpack. She wants some too, but has to have him pour it in her mouth because of an injury to her arm. However, just minutes later while running from law enforcement, she is backing up at a high rate of speed, her bad arm is extended and gripping the passenger seat tightly.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Mallory Kane: Shit.
[deep breath]
Aaron: [sitting down] What the hell are you doing out here? I had to drive all night. I'm hungover as shit. And you're really starting to cut into my vacation time, so can we go please?

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Connections

Featured in Projector: Haywire (2012)

User Reviews

Classy Action Thrills

The story of Haywire is not really appealing. It's about someone tough who got betrayed then wants revenge. It's been used in so many action films. But Haywire has a different purpose to exist. It's about giving Gina Carano her own show with Steven Soderbergh's direction. It's pretty fascinating. Both merits cover the "cookie-cutterness" of the plot. It's not your standard action film with senseless explosions and mediocre dumbness. It's a film with art, style, and action scenes that are ridiculous and realistic. It's short but it's still worth the ride.

The film isn't really trying to be original, big, or loud. Haywire is one of Soderbergh's experiments. The story may not be original but he tells it in a pretty clever way. The first half of the film takes place on a car and shows a lot of flashbacks. The scenes are pretty slick. The action is silent but it's pretty awesome. Gina Carano made every fights dangerously exciting. The other stars does their thing but they don't appear that much. It's one of Soderbergh's trademarks. He casts some big stars but they end up being minor characters. Well, this is Carano's show. It's all about her.

The only thing that disappoints me here is it's too short and there are only few fight scenes. But there are still some action scenes that are pretty exciting like the car chase in New York and the SWAT chase in Dublin were well shot and have a good amount of suspense. The rest of the filmmaking: Well written. The score is fancy. The cinematography and editing are simply art.

Haywire is as simple as it gets. It may not be a fast action blockbuster but it is more interesting than that. It's not quite recommendable to everyone unless you like art films, Soderbergh's directing style, or Gina Carano. No female action star can fight like Gina Carano. It's fun to see her beat up all of these men. Since we are now stuck with action films with mediocre filmmaking, at least we get to see another classy action film like this. But the true core of this film is Gina Carano.