Review: "Haywire" lacks substance, but maybe that's a good thing?

"Haywire" is the newest film from filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, a director used to having a bevy of talented actors at his disposal. In this film, he recruits Gina Carano, an ex-Woman's MMA fighter to be a superheroine who disposes all the A-list actors in his new spy vehicle. This is a bit of a departure for Soderbergh, who's career has ranged from small indie films like "Sex, Lies and Videotape" and "The Girlfriend Experience" to big budget films like the "Ocean's 11" series and most recently "Contagion".

First off, the action is tightly edited and shot in a brutal fashion. Carano has the chops to be the next big action star. She exudes beauty and brawn all at once. What I like is how the action scenes are shot in almost a complete opposite manner from films like "The Bourne" series. Whereas the Bourne movies were always shot with a kinetic pace, the fights often shot very close to the actors faces, Soderbergh pulls the camera back a bit and lets the action happen from a distance. There is one rooftop chase scene in particular in which Carano, deftly named Mallory Kane (awesome name, btw), navigates various rooftops and buildings and rather then take the Bourne approach, in which everything is solved by some kind of gadget or appropriately timed jump off something in a wide open area, Soderbergh constricts the action by giving Carano plenty of fences and barbed-wire to jump through and by doing so creates a more engaging  chase.

The plot is purely preposterous, in true spy movie fashion. There is an initial job, which is clouded in mystery, followed by a double-cross followed by a globe-trotting chase to find out who was involved in our heroine's set-up. Rather then show all the motivations and in thorough detail who the secret black-ops agents are and why they do what they do, Soderbergh keeps all the focus on Mallory Kane. This is a tricky formula however. James Bond always finds out what his villains motives are, even if their motivations are pure fluff, designed just to appease the audience (after all, people want to know why we are watching the film). Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs build a simple, yet vague conspiracy to push the plot forward. It lacks any substance, and most viewers may be turned off by the lack of large chunks of exposition. I happened to actually enjoy how vagrantly opposed the movie is to fulfill all the cliche exposition and gadgetry found in these kind of movies.

The supporting cast is heavy, but because of the restrictive nature of the plot, we see and care little for them. Ewan MacGregor and Michael Douglas ham it up as Mallory's boss and a shadowy government official, respectively. Bill Paxton appears briefly as Mallory's father, and is bland and almost unnecessary to the overall plot. Michael Fassbender plays an M:I6 agent who accompanies Mallory on a mission. The chemistry between the two is strong, and their scenes are easily the best in the film. Lastly, Channing Tatum shows up as a fellow agent and love interest for Mallory, but their chemistry is dry and seems forced into the script.

Rather than worry about the plot, of which there is little, "Haywire" is a pure action film meant to only display the unique talent of Gina Carano. Nothing more and nothing less.

*** out of 4