I honestly knew very little about this movie before seeing it. I knew a few of the cast members that were in it, the basic genre and that Steven Soderbergh directed it. Quite frankly, those were enough for me to want to see it, so I didn’t bother reading much more about it. I was kinda curious as to how I’d never seen a single trailer for the movie in theaters. That fact, combined with the delayed January released date are usually bad signs. It shows the studio has zero faith in the film and just wants to dump it out without any effort or thought. With all that in mind, I was pleasantly surprised. I quite liked the movie.

Writing: This film isn’t gonna win any points for originality in the script department. It is fairly genre stereotypical. It might earn a few points for the rather laid back and simple approach to the genre. Not that it is a bad script or anything, just that much of it has been done before. The one somewhat unique aspect is putting a female in the lead role, and not doing so in a matter that is at all exploitative. It has been done before, but not very often, and rarely done well.

Production: This is one of my favorite things about the film. It is as though Soderbergh was trying to be retro-stylistic with the material, giving it more or a ’70s action thriller feel. From the nice and casual editing to the natural lighting and cinematography, it has a very non-contemporary feel. I was highly appreciative that this movie did not use the hyper editing and wildly hand held camera work that drives me utterly insane. This is how I wish more action movies would be shot and edited today. Bravo, Mr. Soderbergh. One other thing that impressed me to no end were the fight sequences. I have seen countless fight scenes in movies and TV over the years, and am typically very bored by them. The ones in this film were different. Not only did the feel more raw and unrehearsed than most movie fight scenes, but they sounded completely unlike your typical Hollywood fight scene. They sounded like how the fight would sound if you were standing in the room. It had none of that ridiculous fight foley sound that all the other movies have. Actually, the entire movie sounded free of foley sound. Like the lighting and other aspects, the sound seemed as though it was all wild mix caught on the day during filming. It is amazing how fresh and unusual that sounds compared to all the over-produced and mostly faked sound in movies today.

Cast: OK, first thing I have to do is address the lead actress, Gina Carano. I had never seen her name before seeing it in the credits of the movie, nor recognized her in any way. Only after I had gotten home and went to write up this review did I find out that she is some well known MMA fighter. I could not possibly care less about MMA stuff, so of course I had zero idea who she was. The nice thing about it is that up until reading that, I had no idea and would not have guessed it to be true. I very much enjoyed her performance in the role. It does, however, explain how she did so well in the fight sequences in the film. Honestly, I look forward to seeing her in future roles. She is the central role in the movie, and is in nearly all scenes (minus just a small few). Supporting performances are cast with an impressive array of actors. From Michael Douglas to Ewan McGregor to Bill Paxton to Antonio Banderas, the powerful characters in the film are no slouches in the acting department. Carano certainly gets to play against some seasoned veterans. Channing Tatum is an actor that I like well enough, and he does a decent job with his supporting role. Michael Angarano was nice as the unsuspecting tag-along character. He was familiar to me, but I had to look him up later to figure out how I recognized him (plenty of roles, in films like The Art Of Getting By, Sky High and others, including some TV stuff I had seen).

Music: Soderbergh enlists David Holmes again for the slick and retro score for the film. He had previously worked with Holmes on the Oceans films and the fantastic Out Of Sight (one of my favorites). Holmes’ score has his typical flair for the electronic funk style, and Soderbergh features it prominently in the film. A number of scenes are played without dialog and often sound of any other kind with just the score front and center. It works very well. It also works well away from the film in soundtrack form.

Honestly, I kind of wish this was done as a TV series rather than film. I kinda think it would have worked well as a sustained, continuing story. It does setup the possibility for sequels, but given the lackluster release this one got, I somehow doubt there are going to be any more made.

One other little amusing side note about my viewing of this movie. I saw it at Marcus’ theaters in Addison, IL. I was on my way home, driving a couple hours very slowly and tediously through a snow storm. I stopped at IHOP for some dinner and decided that I’d rather kill some more time for the roads to clear some more so I went across the parking lot to the theaters there to catch the movie. I got there a few minutes after start time, figuring I’d only have missed a couple trailers. They told me the movie hadn’t started yet, and that they were having troubles with it. They said they would not be running any trailers once they did get it started. When I got in there, the house lights were completely off, and the screen was dark. I stumbled my way to a seat and waited a few minutes. Then a staffer came in to explain the troubles, saying it would hopefully only be another 5-10 minutes. Then a couple minutes later, the manager came in (after an abrupt and near-blinding instant-on of the main lights) to explain that this third showing of the film for the day (its opening day) was the third time they had suffered technical difficulties with it. They had moved it into the smaller auditorium it was in for my showing after the problems with the first two, and were still having trouble. She explained that they were still trying, but she was not too hopeful, given the previous problems. She handed out free passes for the 10 or so of us in the theater to see another movie. She said we could hang around to see if they would get it working or we could walk over to another movie or get a refund (as well as keep the free pass for the troubles). But before anyone could decide, it suddenly fired up and started, problem free. It is the first time I have actually experienced major tech difficulties at a theater in a few years, actually. I was in no hurry, and did not mind the 20 minute late start time. Hey, I got an extra free pass out of it, too. At any rate, it was just amusing given the film’s title of “Haywire.”