Betrayed by her bosses, a freelance black-ops agent goes on the run in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, a taut action thriller that is as briskly efficient and muscular as its heroine.
Played by mixed martial artist Gina Carano, lean, mean ex-Marine Mallory Kane flees after a mission goes awry in Barcelona and she gets double-crossed in Dublin, with both events shown in flashback. The narrative device is a tad cumbersome but all is forgiven whenever Carano launches herself into action, whether free-running over rooftops or trading blows with her male assailants. But Haywire isn’t simply a Bourne-style knockoff that happens to have a female lead. Lethal and graceful, Carano really does have the chops as a fighter. True, Haywire’s generic plot is strictly B-movie fare, but Carano and A-list support from the likes of Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor give the movie class.
Released on DVD & Blu-ray on Monday 21st May by Momentum Pictures.
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