Haywire – review

Steven Soderbergh was apparently much taken with Gina Carano, the women's mixed martial arts champion, when he saw her on TV. He consequently decided to cast her as a covert operations agent in a thriller modelled on the inconsequential Bond-like entertainments of the 1960s and 70s that he admired, all chases, fights and shoot-outs, with one-word titles such as Charade , Mirage , Kaleidoscope , Hopscotch , Arabesque , Masquerade . The result is a repetitive, fast-moving picture in which Carano gets involved in chases, fights and shoot-outs, some of them lethal, in upstate New York, Barcelona, Dublin, New Mexico and Old Mexico, with brief, non-lethal stopovers in Washington DC and San Diego. Her partners and antagonists are a baker's dozen or Ocean's Eleven of male stars, the most engaging being Michael Fassbender in the Dublin episode.