With a cast including Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender and Michael Douglas, alongside newcomer and MMA fighter Gina Carano – not to mention that it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh – you’d expect something pretty special from Haywire. Sadly though the film doesn’t live up to expectations, beyond a few very good fight scenes.

Carano plays Mallory Kane, a covert operative for hire who does the jobs governments and companies don’t want to admit any part of. After a mission to Barcelona she heads to Dublin for another job and soon realises something is amiss and that she’s suddenly a target herself. Knowing she’s been double-crossed, Mallory must use all her skills to stay one step ahead of those who are out to get her and work out exactly what’s going on.

It’s a plot we’ve seen 100 times before and sadly Haywire has absolutely nothing new to add. While some have compared Mallory to Jason Bourne, the comparison is weak, as there’s not much to her character and the only real similarities are being good at punching people and having to evade forces that are out to get her. With an incredibly hackneyed plot, it’s down to the style and action to make this a worthwhile trip, however while Soderbergh has shown himself an incredibly sophisticated filmmaker in the past, here the lighting and cinematography decisions (he is his own director of photography) often seem mismatched and odd. The fights are good, but these tend to be islands of intense, well choreographed violence in a sea of underwhelming plot. Indeed, it’s difficult not to wonder if so much time and thought was poured into these that the things that link them together suffer.

Even the long list of well known stars add up to little, with each of the men getting little screen time and often not having much to do when they are on screen. It gets to the point where the film mainly seems to be about stars lining up to get beaten up by an extremely ass-kicking woman. Even Ewan McGregor, who has potentially the most interesting character, is let down towards the end with a scene that tries to tie things up in an oddly forced way. The only one who really stands out is Channing Tatum, who makes a lot out of very little.

It’s difficult not to wonder whether the script for Haywire was originally a lot longer and in the editing process, the effort to make it lean and mean resulted in a film that’s rather run of the mill and disjointed. Without Soderbergh and the well-known male stars, there’s little to set this apart from the endless parade of straight-to-DVD action movies (many of which also star ex-fighters) that arrive each month. It’s a shame as there’s a vast amount of talent involved, but it all comes to very little. We may well see more of Carano though, as while she’s not a great actress yet, she’s proficient, driven and single-handedly gives Haywire most of the forward momentum it has.

The disc includes a trio of short but okay featurettes, which are worth a look but not that great.

Overall Verdict: Carano show she’s a potential action star, but Haywire itself feels tired and disjointed, with the only the very well done fights to keep you going.

Special Features:
‘Gina Carano In Training’ Featurette
‘The Men Of Haywire’ Featurette
‘Characters Of Haywire’ Featurette
Trailer

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

When we think of Soviet Era Russia, we don’t normally considering people under Communist rule settling down to watch a home-grown adaptation of Sherlock Holmes on television. However in the late 70s and early 80s director Igor Maslennikov made a series of TV versions of Conan Doyle’s tales about his famed consulting detective, which are surprisingly faithful. They also thankfully lack the feel of some Cold War era Russian entertainment (particularly if it’s set in the West), that the State is forcing it to push an anti-capitalist agenda.

After the death of Sir Henry Baskerville, his nephew Charles seeks the help of famed consulting detective Sherlock Holmes (Vasili Livanov), hoping he can use the man’s deductive reasoning skills to pull apart the suspicious circumstances surrounding Henry’s death. However it isn’t only Charles who knows that Sherlock rarely meets a mystery he can’t solve, and threatening letters arrive extolling Holmes to stay away. While Sherlock remains in London following leads, Dr. Watson (Vitali Solomin) head down to Devon to investigate, getting caught up in a local legend of a hound that is heard howling at night and whose massive footprints have been seen close to suspicious deaths.

It’s slightly odd seeing something so quintessentially British where everyone speaks in Russian. Indeed they do such a good job of making things seem like Victorian Britain, that it becomes jarring when something unmistakable Russian shows up, such as a man dressed head to toe in fur (that said, that’s actually fairly historically accurate for Britain in the 19th Century, but rarely seen in our period dramas). It’s all very well done, so that this two-part take on the tale has a truly cinematic quality, with top notch acting and directing, and lavish sets.

It’s also very faithful to the original novella. While it’s probably the most famous of the Sherlock Holmes stories, The Hound Of The Baskervilles is slightly awkward to adapt on screen as Holmes himself isn’t around for much of the story, leaving the majority of the action to Watson. That means that when it is brought to the screen, people usually feel the need to get Sherlock down to Dartmoor early on, which is usually to the detriment of the story. It rarely works, largely because one of the stories’ great strengths is that it’s about Watson putting what he’s learned from the detective into action.

Here Holmes stays in London most of the time, leaving much of the running time to Vitali Solomin, who makes a superb Watson. Unlike many adaptations he gets to show that he’s more than just someone who bumbles around behind Holmes, and is actually a very smart, resourceful man in his own right.

It’s great fun, with plenty of intrigue and some rather creepy moments, as well as a surprising amount of humour. Although we don’t get see him a huge amount in this 2 ½ hour adaptation, Vasili Livanov is one of the best Sherlock’s there’s ever been (he was even given an honorary MBE in 2006, largely for his work as Holmes). His detective has great verve and wit, and you can almost see the cogs of his mind whirring as he works out everything he can, seemingly at a glance. With great production values and one of the most faithful Baskervilles scripts ever, it’s surprisingly fun to watch.

Overall Verdict: A Russian Sherlock Holmes may seem like just a curiosity, but it’s actually one of the best Hound Of The Baskervilles there is.

Special Features:
None

Reviewer: Tim Isaac