HAYWIRE Discussion - Page 2

I think some people were expecting The Transporter with a hot chick and were put off by how relatively grounded the film is.  The action is all pretty believable, so people looking for some kind of wild, over-the-top ride were bound to be a little disappointed.

I thought Carano was great, not necessarily with her acting, but with her presence.  She demands your attention, and she comes across very confident and not at all like an MMA fighter who just happens to be in a movie.

I rather liked it. I'll see it again, I expect. Perhaps because like this entire board, I'm just smitten. 

It was basically a shitty action movie with a brilliant director and a brilliant cast, and I happen to like shitty action movies.

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Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 

 

 

It was basically a shitty action movie with a brilliant director and a brilliant cast, and I happen to like shitty action movies.

This.  I loved it.  That last fight scene on the beach was gorgeous, and any Banderas is good Banderas as far as I'm concerned.

It boggles my mind that my wife detested it.  "Bad acting, stupid story" she says while simultaneously setting expectations that we HAVE to see The Vow on Valentine's Day.  She usually likes action movies, too.

ETA: a D+ Cinemascore?  Really?

Just curious. But is a Jason Bourne/Jack Reacher type agent even possible in real life?

I know SEALS and SPEC OPs have intensive fighting and survival skills. But i mean super spys that can read minute details with a glance and evade surveliance in big cities?

It's cool that they have a woman who can genuinely kick ass but I still have no interest in seeing this. The cliche-riddled trailer makes it looks like something that would have gone straight-to-DVD had it not been a Soderbergh film.

Oh, absolutely, but it's executed with more class, restraint and wit than most movies in the last year.

It's also kind of dumb. I dig the film a lot. Carano can't act, but Soderbergh works around her limitations and uses what she can do very, very well. I will say something that might be controversial...I wasn't in love with Holmes' score. I understand completely what Soderbergh was going for, and I tried to roll with it, but there were times when I wished the music had a little more propulsion as opposed to breeze. Outside of that, I was very happy to see a female action hero who is genuinely convincing and wasn't about sticking out her butt in PVC leather, my friend and several women in attendance where clearly very happy about that too. Carano has presence, but I fear this really is a case where if she decides to continue doing this, the directors she'll be working with won't be nearly as smart as Soderbergh and she'll end up miscast and misused. Like in Expendables 3 or some shit like that.

Probably as good a reason as any to showcase why Soderbergh fucked around so much with Dobbs script for The Limey. I mostly ignored the story though, which is a shame, but this is practically one of the few female lad action movies that really works at making the lead a female ACTION STAR.

Yeah, I'm really terrified this is going to be the exact result of this. It'd be nice to see her used in things of slightly higher quality than whatever Statham is farting out this year.

I liked the old school, no-nonsense approach (long shots, scenes without music, no exaggerrated sound effects during fights).

Gina's fine for a first timer and...fine. No amazing acting moments, but she's likeable. Like others have said, the SEAGALISHNESS of the movie hurts it a bit (only Fassbender gives her a bit of trouble during the action scenes).

The last shot/line was great.

Problem with the last shot/line is that I don't really know why I should be satisfied that Banderas is getting some sort of slick offscreen comeuppance. He, like most of the characters in the movie, never really does anything. He's involved in selling out Carano but what does he really do onscreen that sets up the last scene as a big payoff? For a last shot like that to work the movie needs to have built up a strong disgust for Banderas' character.

Knowing that he set her up to die and was living de good life (wit de new wife) because of it was enough for me to laugh at his "oh shit" fate.

Just led to a "That's all? We go home now?" feeling for me.

You and most of the  people in my theater!

But cutting after the words OH SHIT is always funny and I thought it was a unique way to end the movie.

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Originally Posted by wadew1 

You and most of the  people in my theater!

Didn't get much reaction from my crowd either. Even the fella who yelled "What a way to go" when Fassbender's head was in between Gina's thighs remained silent at the end.

What a sleaze!

I bet he didn't say anything because he passed out after jackin off

Took my dad to see it this afternoon and really dug it. We both got a big laugh out of the ending. (And not a snarky laugh, either. A "Ha, that was great!" laugh.)

I LOVED the shot of Ewan McGregor on the beach staring at the ocean with Carano suddenly just appearing out of nowhere and running at him like a sexy freight train.

As for her acting, I thought she did just fine. The character's a tough tomboy martial artist. I don't ask for much, and neither does the script, and I think she gave it everything it needed along with the added bonus of being really comfortable and natural on camera (with the other added bonus of her being a legitimate badass). 

Good fun.

Really though, what could we see her do to Banderas that she didn't already do to McGregor?  We know he's not getting out alive, so I was fine with the film ending with his reaction.

Sexy freight train is my new favorite description possible.

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

I was mostly weirded out by how BEARDED GRIZZLY MAN BANDERAS cleaned up enough to be so GQ with his lady.

I really loved it -- I had this history in my head that he presents himself to everyone he does business with as a Latin Saul Berenson, when he's really a serious, swanky player. The GQ facial hair, the abs, it all fits. Another reason why I loved the movie -- it's so lean about everything that you can make up your own fun histories for the characters.

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Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

 

 

Sexy freight train is my new favorite description possible.

High five! High sexy five.

For Mallory, men walking along a beach and being all profoundly contemplative are pussies that need to be destroyed.

Now I just want to see her destroy Tom Cruise in the beach fight of MI2.  Slow-mo flip-kick?  FUCK YOU, HUNT!

Yes... I'm bringing up MI2 again.  

I don't think even Carano could resist Hunt's intense smile and car-tangoing.

When she met Michael Douglas at the airfield and rode up on a motorcycle, the first thing that shot through my mind was, "That is SUCH an Ethan Hunt thing to do."

Loved it.  Carano was wicked sexy, and she convincingly beat the shit out of everyone.  That worked for me.   I also liked how well the streets of Dublin were used, and the score was great.  

I'm up for The Haywire Supremacy, Soderbergh.  Bring it.  

It's been sitting very very well. I think I flat out enjoyed it more than most of the prestige films I spent the last couple months watching. If anything, I did kind of want to watch her beat the shit out of every single movie star in there, including Michael Douglas's frail ass. But she did plenty.

Sadly, I could see this easily being the film career high point or Carano, simply because movies like this are exactly where she'd be most effective, and movies like this are just never this good. Speaking of Mission Impossible, maybe she can make some money playing the bad girl in the next one or something. 

I've been recommending it to everyone I know, which is pretty unusual. I hope they don't all hate it, what with that D+

Dug it, didn't love it. Stylistically it's genius. Probably the most visually gorgeous thing I've seen in a long time -- and Soderbergh in this mode is probably my favorite Soderbergh. Felt, in some ways, like an actioned-up Ocean's Fourteen. Loved Holmes's score, loved the tone, loved the clever script... but like Contagion, it never feels significant or ambitious. It's a lark elevated by a good cast and the photography and an above-average screenplay.

The problem comes from the same thing that makes Soderbergh distinctive, and that's his emotional chilliness. It's part of what makes his grasp of coolness so strong. But I never really liked Mallory that much, or felt interested in her predicament. She doesn't have any arc to speak of, so we have no through-line in the movie. I felt it particularly went to a wrong place when it tried to make us feel bad when Tatum's frat-boy spy kicked it. Could not have been more indifferent to that character, and was surprised that Mallory gave two shits either way when he went.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 
Speaking of Mission Impossible, maybe she can make some money playing the bad girl in the next one or something. 

I was thinking the same thing!

I dunno... I kinda felt bad for Channing Tatum's character. 

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Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Okay, D+ Cinemascore? Uh... WHAT?

 

Who are these terrible people?

Maybe the same sort of people who walked out of The Artist because it has no sound.

Re: Channing Tatum. I felt bad for him. I felt bad for him because he was duped, and misled, and Kenneth clearly fed him (and continued to feed him in that scene) lies about Kane, Barcelona, and Dublin. I felt bad for him because he seems to be someone who wants to do the right thing, and Kenneth abused that sentimentality. And I felt bad for Kane because she actually had some kind of feeling for him, and he's the only person in the film aside from her dad who she seems to care about on any deeper level. (Michael Angarano notwithstanding, since her strongest feeling toward him, while positive, is only "he's an innocent civilian and I do not want him to die".)

Was going to weigh in, but the whole thing is fading from memory already. Was really bothered by Soderbergh slapping the Oceans' cinematography and Holmes score on this. Seriously misaligned. But loved Carano and the parade of doomed A-list dudes. Wish they were in a more engaging movie.

Surprisingly, I was not a fan. At all.

I don't know how much actual military experience Mallory's father had (he never comes off like a bad ass or anything), but he's clearly a Tom Clancy-type author and I like the intimation that she may have gone into the Marines and then fitted into the private sector in an effort to please him by pretty much becoming one of his characters. Obviously this also bleeds into her relationships, as she says that there's only one man she genuinely trusts.

I liked the music.  It did remind me of the OCEAN'S movies, but it also has a Lalo Schifrin/Bullitt feel to it.

Liked it, didn't love it. Stylish cinematography and excellent fight scenes were undermined by a bare-bones, cliche-ridden, kind of boring story. But Gina Carano was a lot of fun to watch... for several reasons.
 

Don't feel too bad for him. He got to have sex with Gina Carano's character. I'd consider taking a broken arm and a gut shot for chance at that.

Saw this on a lark, glad I took the time. Certainly not a movie for the ages, but a tight, smooth bit of cinema that puts all the CG-heavy slogfests that have been dropping recently to shame. It reminded me a bit of Drive in that the whole thing seemed edited within an inch of it's life, though in this case it was to remove anything that wasn't violence or the bare minimum of plot needed to set up that violence. I actually sort of enjoyed the dialogue being fairly grounded and not overly quippy, and while I don't want to say they set the bar low, I got the impression that the movie had a very definite goal and that it hit it exactly. I have to admit, I'm a little baffled by the cool general reception, to me the whole thing played like a streamlined Bourne flick (and if we're going to compare blank-slate super spy protagonists, I'd give Mallory the nod). I would guess part of it's just a case of people not being into a realistic(ish) female action hero.

The script is the major issue.  It's almost so generic that at the beginning I figured they were going for self-conscious action movie dialogue, kind of like the way Mamet wrote Spartan.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, as there's a level of humor to it.  As it settled in, I didn't feel that quite so much, though.  I hated the exposition dump at the end.  That stood out.

Everything else was pretty much awesome, though.  It's funny that The Rock and Statham get many pining for the heyday of 80's action cinema, but I never felt that until I saw Carano in this.  I'd love a bunch of movies with her kicking ass.  She's fucking rad.

Finaly got to watch it yesterday. Very light but also very satisfying. And I think that was a deliberate choice by Soderberg. Carano may not be the world's best actress but she's good enough. And the camera loves her. She has huge amounts of presence, is really good looking and for once I loved seeing a woman convincingly portray a badass. So much so that especially during the fight with McGregor I had the opposite reaction from what I usually have with male on female fights. Not like these waifs they have us believing that are able to punch out 300 lbs Navy Seals. I really would like her to stick around. 

I finally caught this one last night, and I'm still working it over in my head. I think the plot was bare-bones on purpose, that perhaps Soderbergh/Dobbs realized that these stories are so overdone that the plot really doesn't matter. The focus is on Carano, and on us the audience, as we deal with a real serious woman in the classically male role. He made some great stylistic choices - wide shots, no nausea-inducing editing of the fight scenes, the way he used music (or didn't) in certain scenes. Perhaps one of the most quietly meta action films I've ever seen. And yes, the camera loves Carano. She held her own, but needs to work on her non-verbal moments (except when she's kicking ass). 

Good stuff, just keep her away from Albert Pyun movies.

Felt like a student film to me. Just had this amateurish craftsmanship. I did fall in love with Carano though, especially in Dublin. What a fucking babe. Not the best actress but manages to pull off the rough stuff and the not-so-rough stuff at least in terms of physical acting. I almost feel like the movie is so amateur only to keep her acting from being a distraction, like the whole thing is brought down a couple of levels to fit around Carano. Like Soderbergh scratched his head at all those WWE movies and thought "I can do that a bit classier".

I think that's completely backwards.  I think Soderbergh was out to make a movie that intentionally had a sort of DIY look to it.  Like, the title fonts look deliberately chosen to appear like something that came off a computer.  Or even look at the marketing for the film, which had all kinds of different concept posters like these:

I can see where at a glance it would appear "amateurish", but it was so well shot, choreographed, and edited, it didn't look like any kind of student film I've ever seen.  Casting Carano, altering her voice, these kinds of things add to the level of experimentation that Soderbergh was playing around with.  He got similar heat for The Girlfriend Experience, which was equally rewarding in its own way (even if it had its share of issues.)  I like when a director isn't afraid to try different things.  I sure find it more interesting than another bland Jason Statham movie, or something.