Steven Soderbergh is one of my favorite directors and while I may not love all of his films, I can’t deny that they all showcase an excellent handle on visuals, story and characters. Among the things that I enjoy about him is the way he’ll take an untrained performer and cater a film to that particular person’s strengths. With The Girlfriend Experience he took pornstar Sasha Grey and assembled a very interesting, dynamic and original film. He brought forth an engaging performance from Grey and kick started her acting career. Now with Haywire, he takes martial arts fighter star Gina Carano and assembles one of the coolest action films in years.

In Haywire, Gina Carano plays Mallory a former Navy agent who now works for a private company that does various top secret missions. After a successful mission in Barcelona in which she and Aaron (Channing Tatum) extracted a hostage and delivered him safely to Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas),  Mallory’s supervisor, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), gives her another job in Dublin. In this last job things go haywire and Mallory finds herself set-up and running from the people that were supposedly on her side.

The first thing that really struck me about Haywire was the action scenes. We are introduced to Carano and Tatum in a fist fight that is as unexpected as it is badass, as intense as it is awesome and works perfectly as a set-up of how things will unfold. I think this is the first time Soderbergh has directed an action film but judging by the action scenes it feels like he has been doing them for ages. He keeps the camera on the action and doesn’t over edit the fights. We can appreciate the intricate and exciting choreography, and they all have a palpable sense of danger and feel realistic.

Another element that makes the action here feel unique and real is how Soderbergh shows the fullness of the action. This is especially notable during the escape sequences that last for a long time providing a real sense of how long it really takes for someone to run away from the police or bad guys. During the Dublin mission, Mallory is attempting to escape and she goes through various rooftops and buildings and that whole sequence is simply amazing. The cinematography is beautiful, the score pumps up the adrenaline and Carano handles herself like a prime action star should.

Gina Carano also delivers a surprisingly engaging and wonderful performance. First of all, she exudes badassery from her very presence and manages to convey vulnerability and betrayal during the quiet moments. Physically she is beautiful and a nice change from the overly skinny action starlets we’re used to. Furthermore, because of the way she looks her fights are more believable and you can buy her beating the shit out of Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender. I hope she and Soderbergh team up once again for another action-driven flick.

The supporting cast is not only impressive but also brilliant. Each name is greater than the next and all of them manage to be memorable and cool. Much to my surprise, the most memorable one is Channing Tatum who for the first time delivers an actually good performance. It’s true what they say, a brilliant director can bring out the absolute best of even the most untrained actors. This gives me hope that their next team-up, Magic Mike, will deliver the goods from the acting department. Fassbender is the other notable standout as an assassin who really kicks the shit out of Carano.

Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire is easily one of the most entertaining films I’ve seen so far in 2012. From a visual standpoint the film delivers all that you would expect from a Soderbergh film. The acting is great all around and Gina Carano delivers a very promising and badass performance. My only problem is that Haywire is a bit longer than it probably should have been, but the story has enough intrigue to keep you engaged. Furthermore, with the exciting, intense and extremely amazing action scenes you’ll easily be able to forget about time and so forth. Soderbergh has deliver another outstanding film that truly deserves to been seen and receive much more attention. Go watch it.

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Even though I’ve seen most of David Cronenberg’s films, it wasn’t until he joined forces with Viggo Mortensen for A History of Violence that I became a genuine fan of Cronenberg. With that film he stepped away from his grotesque and horrific motifs towards much more grounded material drenched in violence and a bit of sex. With Eastern Promises he completely blew me away and delivered not only one my favourite films, but aided Viggo Mortensen in becoming by far one of the most distinctive and brilliant actors. Teaming up again with Mortensen, Cronenberg has deliver A Dangerous Method which is unlike anything he has done before.

A Dangerous Method chronicles the friendship between two philosophers who gave birth to psychoanalysis: Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). The key factor that brought these two brilliant minds together was a russian woman named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), who also was able to improve Jung’s research and more importantly impact his life in a deeply personal manner.

If there is one factor working in favour of A Dangerous Method is Keira Knightley’s performance. In the first half of the film her character is manic, unpredictable, disturbed and displaying raging signs of deep psychosis. I read an interview in which Knightley described the process of developing this character and this performance, and she talked about studying the various physical contractions and tics people suffering from similar traumas displayed. Her research really paid off as she deliver a performance unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Knightley goes full out crazy in this film to the point where she’s both disgusting and frightening. From the accent to her gaze to her body language, she is able to erase any notion of her star persona and deliver an intricate and career high performance.

However, once the character goes through the treatment and becomes sane the film loses it’s spark. Up until that point it was her performance that made things interesting and exciting, but once her character reaches sanity and is subdued like the other characters it all becomes increasingly difficult to watch. This isn’t because what happens is disturbing or anything of that sort, but everything reaches a state of stasis and the dullness factor that was creeping in from the beginning overpowers the film. One of the aspects that hurts the film is the way it jumps in time fairly rapidly and you can’t help but feel that it is trying way too hard to cover a lot of ground. As a result things feel disjointed and just as something intriguing was about to happen the film jumps two years ahead.

For a film that features such prominent minds you would expect things to be interesting throughout but unfortunately that isn’t the case. There are some interesting ideas present in the film and some of the conversations these people have are thoughtful and present things from a different perspective. But things feel too stoic and I don’t think there’s really a plot, I just felt like things weren’t going anywhere. Part of the blame must be placed on Cronenberg whose direction is effective, but doesn’t do anything to elevate the characters or stories or even the visuals. You can tell that this is a direction primarily servicing story, but when there’s no story it all feels pointless and uninteresting. I’m sure people who are more familiar with these people will like it but even I, who is somewhat familiar with Freud’s work, found the film dull so I can only imagine how bored an unfamiliar viewer might feel.

Another part of the blame must also be placed on Michael Fassbender who downright disappoints in this film. He is by far the weakest link which truly sucks since he is the lead and we are suppose to care about him. His performance is effective but there is nothing remarkable, special or remotely interesting in it. Fassbender is just there to drive the “story” forward and is very easily overshadowed by everything else around him. Vincent Cassel and Viggo Mortensen both give fine performances, but they have little screen time and aren’t as good as they probably should’ve been.

With A Dangerous Method, Cronenberg is touching new ground in the sense that instead of presenting sexuality through graphic acts or imagery, he is taken a much more philosophical approach. This approach, which on paper sounds very interesting proves to be dull and completely unmemorable. All the performances except for Knightley’s are effective and do not deliver anything special or engaging. The strength of the film is Knightley’s out there performance that once it is stripped from its flashy lunacy joins in the dullness and stasis of everything around her. In terms of Cronenberg’s filmography I have to say that A Dangerous Method is by far his weakest film to date, which is really disappointing considering the brilliant streak of films he was riding on.

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