Haywire

Haywire wants to be a stylish thriller with a cool heroine, physical action and a clever plot. Instead, it’s just stylish inanity that takes itself too seriously, is too unnecessarily complicated to be a proper chill-out movie and the main character is a violent cold-blooded lesbian about whose fate you don’t really care. A strange pulp hybrid. (25.11.2012)

Soderbergh goes against expectations once more - although that was actually expected - and offers a simple fable in which the plot comes last. The schematics of the director's rendition of the secret agents and even more secret leaders evoke in me a mockery of the rules of the genre rather than its adoration. I'm no film scholar, so I don't have to do any digging into it. I was entertained by the clear action scenes, dominated by Gina Carano's physical abilities, and Soderbergh's unorthodox approach. So when Holmes' bizarre music plays during the hostage liberation scene, which evokes cheap spy themes, I sank into my seat and rode on a fully positive wave until the end. PS: I'd damn well change places with Fassbender in the leg choke scene. (14.03.2012)

From Soderbergh, it's actually capital malice. To shoot such simple B-movie misery with such narrative finesse, prudence, but at the same time with moments when Haywire ostentatiously declares the good old era of VHS excavations (iconic shots of the heroine's face, the ending (!!!), meaningless cuts into sharp backlight, etc.). The advantages of the film stand out when you put it in the context of the annoying fashion of female agents (Salt, Colombiana) - Soderbergh irritates, calms, laughs, stays in the intentions of his clinical mode, but this time with a somewhat chill out flavor (elevator music and calm cut give it really long smoke). Haywire is amusing with its nonsense, which it is completely aware of. It's a film that pretends to be the possible beginning of a B-series - but it's too reflectively confident and deliberately subversive for a godless B-movie. It's just Steven's controlled flicker, a fun anecdote that unfortunately didn't go as far as Drive and contented itself with a great deal of uselessness. Paradoxically, I enjoyed this nonsense. [70%] P.S. Gina Carano really has balls, in a bourgeois dress and in the use of choke holds. (01.03.2012)

Neither fish nor fowl. Soderbergh built the film on the participation of martial arts champion Gina Carano, and she is great in the action scenes as expected. When character acting is necessary, however, she clearly lags behind. Not that she is horrible, but she does not master the more complex nuances of acting and cannot present her character convincingly. She lacks the charisma that a star in the lead role needs. Soderbergh may have hired a whole range of famous names, but they are just tagalongs. I'm afraid there won't be that many people that Soderbergh will enchant with this because this is neither art nor a B-action movie. One would expect Soderbergh, as a symbol of independent film, to sneak a whole range of other meanings into the film, but it somehow lacks that. Haywire is worth a single watch, but I wouldn't bother a second time. Overall impression: 55%. (12.11.2020)

The whole thing is nothing-like, empty. The action scenes are top-rate (the chase through the forest!), in terms of acting - nothing to criticize, but the fillers between one piece of action to the next bored me to death. I’m sorry, but actors just reeling off their lines without a thought just isn’t enough for me. Haywire is ingeniously directed, just the frequently inappropriate music bothered me. (28.04.2012)

Everything but cliché. An excellent film that you need to learn to like. Gina Carano is an incredible fighter and the action scenes are amazing, in my opinion better than in the Bourne trilogy; they are dense, believable, physical. You can feel MMA with every second. Packed with stars, but only on the surface. Soderbergh plays incredibly well with the given genre and essentially shows everyone the middle finger. Many people won't appreciate this film, but a few will really like it. (28.04.2012)

Steven Soderbergh is a director who is able to attract stars of the silver screen for his films. The same goes for the film "Haywire". Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and even Channing Tatum are actors who have already made a name for themselves, some of which will never be forgotten. None of them have enough space in the movie because the attention is focused on the main character, Gina Carano, a fitness instructor and martial arts specialist. It is evident in the action scenes, they are tough, animalistic, and perfectly executed. And not only thanks to Gina, but also thanks to the other actors. The trailer, where Gina confronts Michael Fassbender, clearly shows that the action aspect is excellently developed, the choreography simply works. But that's all there is to it. Soderbergh presents us with a story that is incredibly small and simple. From a person who made all the "Ocean's" movies and also the excellent film "Contagion" from the same year as "Haywire", I would simply expect more. The random connection with the young man Scott, to whom the main character actually tells everything, is, in my opinion, unnecessary and does not have any proper justification. In the end, it is just an ordinary film about how a tough agent wants to find out what happened, why she was betrayed, and then, of course, seeks revenge. There is no big action finale either. Soderbergh took it as a break and critics will give it good ratings just because it's Soderbergh. This is just bad. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/07/runaways-rok-jedna-nedotknutelni-johnny.html (22.02.2013)

Of all the action movies in which the female lead character kicks the ass of all the men present that I've had the pleasure to see so far in my life, the thriller Haywire enthralled me the least, therefore, barely at all. I watched it more or less for the decent-sounding cast, but I didn't give a damn about the plot from just a few minutes in. (40%) (24.12.2022)