The
January film landscape normally has the feel of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. All
the awards bait and holiday blockbusters have stormed through town, leaving
little resources for the January stragglers to follow. As a result, studios
normally use the month to populate movie theaters with broad comedies, dumb action
movies, and other forms of cinematic junk food. These movies normally stink,
but this year brought us Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, a film that would seem to be just another thriller on
paper but in reality is an action film that defies many of the conventions we
see in modern action films. Not a whole lot of thought went into the plot or
character work, but the action scenes are tremendously well-orchestrated.
It
all works because of the casting of Gina Carano as the lead. She may not
necessarily be the best actor on the world, but she has the potential to be one
of the better action stars in the world. Most movies of this ilk strain
credulity because we are supposed to buy that these cleaned-up Hollywood actors
are able to beat the crap out of all the villains that stand in their way.
Carano winds all her battles because she’s just a better fighter, and this is
(of course) owed to her background as an MMA fighter. Soderbergh wisely takes
advantage of this by filming the action in long, patient takes, and her
physical skill comes through. There is no shaky cam, and no gimmicks are used
to manufacture excitement. It’s involving because what we’re seeing is pretty
darn impressive.
As
with other Soderbergh movies, many were put off by just how cold the
proceedings felt, but I felt his approach worked just about perfectly. Haywire is a pretty dumb movie, but it
least it’s a different and intriguing kind of fun.
The
rest of the DVD and Blu-ray releases this week are just a bunch of movies that
I haven’t seen and have no real interest in. There is New Year’s Eve, Garry Marshall’s latest attempt to make us stare at
famous people for two hours and call it entertainment. There is also Madonna’s
widely-panned W.E., about Wallis
Sampson and a modern woman who is inspired by her story. Finally, you can kick
back and relax as Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah make fun of each other in
between musical numbers in Joyful Noise.
Tell me how those three movies are, won’t you?
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