Haywire

Stars: Gina Carado, Michael Angarano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, Mathieu Kassowitz

Director: Steven Soderbergh

This muddled action thriller is like one of those widescreen Europudding films from decades ago - but this time tailored to the talents of coolly curvaceous martial arts queen Carado, perhaps the first real action heroine since Cynthia Rothrock.

Shot soullessly on various locations - Barcelona is made to look like a tip - the film's disjointed story makes it almost impossible to figure out what's going on. But we can say that Carado plays an agent-for-hire given a new assignment in which the hostage-to-be-rescued is soon bumped off, and everyone else seems to be out to kill our heroine.

Carado looks super-fit in more ways than one, but there's not much personality to her acting at this stage of her budding film career. Otherwise, an all-too-distinguished cast presumably took the money and padded off to the nearest bank, although Angarano does have a bit more of a part as the ordinary guy who helps Carado out in a crisis, and accompanies her on a perilous road trip while she tries to explain the plot. It's the only battle she loses all movie.

David Quinlan

USA 2011. UK Distributor: Momentum (Paramount). Technicolor.
92 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 15 Jan 2012