Haywire

Films about covert operative situations have certainly been made aplenty now and in the past, but how many of those films have had a woman that beats the crap out of these grown men? Let's see. I'd say none until "Haywire" came along.

Beautiful freelance covert operative Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is hired out by her handler, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) to many global entities to perform jobs which governments can't authorize or heads of state wouldn't want to know about. After a mission to rescue a hostage in Barcelona, Mallory is quickly assigned on another mission in Dublin. When the mission goes terribly wrong and Mallory realizes she's been double crossed, she needs to use all her skills and abilities including fighting to escape an international manhunt headed up by Kenneth and Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas). She then has to make it back to the U.S., protect her dad (Bill Paxton), and exact revenge on those that betrayed her.

The film starts with Aaron (Channing Tatum), a co-worker of Mallory's arriving at a coffee shop in upstate New York to bring Mallory in. A confrontation and argument ensues and a bystander, Scott (Michael Angarano) steps in to help Mallory and she grabs Michael as a hostage and gets into his car so as to get away from Aaron. Mallory then precedes to tell Michael what's happened to her and the story is then told as a flashback.

The film was slickly directed by Steven Soderbergh ("Out of Sight" '98, "Erin Brockovich" 2000, "Traffic" 2000, "Ocean's Eleven" '01, "Solaris" '02, "Ocean's Twelve" '04, "The Good German" '06, "Ocean's Thirteen" '07, "Che Part 1 & 2" '08, "The Informant!" '09, "Contagion" '11). This guy knows how to put a different kind of twist or quirkiness to his films so they are not only well made, but also entertaining. It was written by Lem Dobbs and even though the plot wasn't overly original, it was the directing that really pulled it off for this movie.

Others to round out the cast are Michael Douglas as Coblenz, Michael Fassbender as Paul, and Mathieu Kassovitz as Studer.

With this slick directing and amazingly eclectic cast, it will keep you riveted for the hour and a half running time you'll spend, and even keep you talking afterwards.

Out of 4 stars: 3                       Rated: R                           93min.