Some times I don't understand the world. Well, truth be admitted, I rarely understand the world. I'm not even talking about pandemics or the arrogance of those who deny it's existence or even that this is the probable endgame for years of denying that science is science about so many things. When you the village there will never be a wolf, when a wolf arrives, they assume it's a mirage? Mixed metaphors or not. This is not about science or pandemics or even wolves.
What this is about is how a movie that seemingly had everything going for it, wasn't a hit. The year was 2011, a viral sensation and action sports/MMA star, Gina Carano, made the seemingly brilliant choice to wait for her debut film role, Haywire.
She could have easily taken a check for a wink wink action movie that was big on stunts, involved MMA moves and followed in the footsteps of so many sports to movie transitions. A reboot of Bloodsport? Easy. A female slanted Rambo or Rocky? Meh. Instead, she found something completely different.
Stephen Sodenbergh after Erin Brocovich, Traffic and the entire Ocean's thievery trilogy, with a cast to die for and a fairly clever script. Built around Carano's persona, athleticism, charisma and visual presence. It should have been tossing gasoline on a bonfire. Epic, explosive and eye catching.
Just look at the cast. Carano as a first time actress is the only perceivable question mark. Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, an impossibly young Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas.
The script does an excellent job of letting visuals and silence tell the story as much as the spoken word. Carano plays an ex-marine now global security specialist who basically functions as a spy. Sodenbergh gives the entire film a nouvelle-noir film. Yes this is an action movie. The stunts and fight scenes are spectacularly filmed. But it's a caper, a heist, a spy film and an action movie all rolled into one.
The script allows so many of the characters and by extension, the performers to thrive. McGregor has always had a very easy bad guy vibe. Especially if there was subterfugue to be involved. Banderas plays the committed government man with questionable side with charm and easily creates doubts. Tatum plays a combo bad boy, eye candy and boy scout. Douglas plays the political figure that you easily could believe is evil or good or just a political figure. Fassbender, it a morally ambiguous agent who looks dashingly handsome but is underwhelming.
Even Bill Paxton plays her father, a spy novelist with a weird mustache and back story that only he could make seem reasonable. It is interesting that his character is the complete opposite of "There in the fucking wall man!" from Aliens. Playing against type?
Soderbergh uses silence so well in the film. It creates tension, makes the action scenes pop even more and not once, not even for a moment, does Carano utter or even seem to be about to utter a one liner upon defeat of the enemy. The vast majority of fight scenes end in silence, in seeming contemplation.
Haywire hardly made any money. Carano never became the next great female action star and her career has not gone to the level I might have expected. However, her excellent turn as the aging and reluctant freedom fighter in The Mandelorian has been a very welcome back to relevance. As an action movie fan, I feel we missed out on a decade of potential.
I am glad that she's found her way back into the mainstream with The Mandelorian. But we'll always have Haywire as an ode to what she could have been and what action movies should aspire to be. Clever, beautifully shot. Leave the dialogue to the villains and never forget to use silence as a character itself.
