Surprised at how ill-prepared the general public was for Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire” this past weekend. I waited about three years for this film, back when it was called “Knockout.” And it didn’t disappoint, delivering sleek, ground-level thrills, combining Soderbergh’s stylistic experimentation with a balls-to-the-wall no-fat “Bourne” picture that ditched political pretensions in favor of loaded sexual interactions, somehow tucked away in this tight ninety minute punchfest. A B-picture given A-film treatment.
I tried to watch with a feminist lens, but by the halfway point, the film was clicking so solidly on every angle that I began to ignore that the lovely Gina Carano was a “woman,” instead observing as she tore apart A-List male actors one by one, convincingly, and brutally. She had too much personality, too much genuine swagger to be just an action figure, but her sexual identity, while present, took a very deep backseat to her hand-to-hand dismantling of each castmember. When she changes from the sleek dining dress to a leather jacket and jeans, she’s Brando in “The Wild One.” When she cockily drives her motorcycle up to Michael Douglas, she’s Cruise in “Mission: Impossible 2.”
Somehow, the film received a D+ Cinemascore. The knee-jerk reaction, which I’m gonna stick with for now, is sexism. It’s a woman realistically beating on men, and when that’s done without the fantasy elements from CGI and such, a lot of insecure people might feel awkward. But what I find fascinating about this film is that this is the natural corrective to slime like “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” Here’s a story about a woman that was made a victim, chased out of her job and threatened with death by an obnoxious patriarchy. And she’s getting back at them by playing their game better than they did. Too bad for them - the men don’t stand a chance.
