‘Haywire’ about fights, not substance

(MCT) — Steven Soderbergh has been telling interviewers that he’s planning to take a sabbatical from filmmaking because he has lost his inspiration. His lack of interest is palpable in “Haywire,” a rote exercise in action filmmaking that is sleek and polished and instantly evaporates from memory.

More unusual for Soderbergh is that the movie isn’t even all that fun to watch: Once you get over the novelty of seeing mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano beat up her male co-stars, the film has practically nothing else to offer.

“Haywire” was written by Lem Dobbs, who previously collaborated with Soderbergh on “Kafka” and “The Limey,” the latter being one of the director’s most entertaining movies, as well as an ingenious deconstruction of revenge-drama formulas. “Haywire” sports a similarly fragmented chronology, but the various shifts in time and place don’t build toward anything, and Soderbergh isn’t interested in doing anything radical with the action genre, either.

“Haywire” starts promisingly, with a sudden eruption of violence between Carano and Channing Tatum that catches you off-guard, followed by a long sequence in Dublin in which she pairs up with another spy (Michael Fassbender) who may be planning to kill her.

But once the script starts to reveal the complicated answer to the question “Who betrayed Mallory, and why?” “Haywire” becomes increasingly dull. There is some fun to be had in watching actors such as Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas playing shady characters whose allegiances aren’t always clear. But Soderbergh, who is capable of making even the driest subject matter fascinating, isn’t interested in the cloak-and-dagger stuff.

“Haywire” is more about the fight scenes than what happens in between them, which makes it no different than your typical Jean Claude Van Damme picture: It’s simply more stylish and better made. Carano is a bonafide livewire who looks as good in an evening dress as she does in sweats and a hoodie. She takes the movie a lot more seriously than Soderbergh does, though.

Tired and remote, “Haywire” is the work of a filmmaker in dire need of a vacation.