Haywire (2011)

4/5

Steven Soderbergh's Haywire is a tightly-paced action thriller about a covert ops agent (Carano) who is double-crossed by her boss (McGregor). If the plot feels tired and rehashed, that's because it is. Story-wise, nothing about this movie is all that new or interesting, despite the scriptwriter's best efforts at infusing it with twists and turns. Two things make this movie good, and two things only. One is the directing and the other is the fighting. And there are a lot of fight scenes. Soderbergh avoids the frenzied over-editing you find in lots of modern action films and keeps the camera far enough away so you can actually tell what's going on. The fighting feels authentic thanks to the lead, Carano, who is an MMA fighter and American Gladiator. Unfortunately, she's not a great actress. Her lines are cold and hard, so half the time she manages to sound like a badass and the other half she sounds like an idiot reading a script. If you know what to expect going in, this movie will more than live up to your expectations, but it's far from a genre-bending production.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1506999/

La Haine (1995)

4.9/5

La Haine is stunning, creative, artistic, beautiful, predictive, bleak, uncompromising, and provocative. The crisp black and white cinematography provides both a documentary feel and brings an intangible beauty to the roughness of the urban underbelly. The shot composition was masterful, the camera movement emotive. There is one shot that compares with Citizen Kane in its magic. The camera peers over Vincent's shoulder as he looks at himself in the mirror, then it continues moving forward over his shoulder until it's a straight-on close-up on his face. In the mirror. But where is the camera? This is just one aspect of the scene. I didn't even mention that he was quoting De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, the cinematic definition of self-destructive, repetitive behavior leading to explosive violence. In so doing, Kassovitz not only fleshes out the character, but also questions the influence of both America and cinema (both of which are revisited later on) on the ubiquitous hate and violence in the film. There is great depth and meaning in such a superficially simple scene.

The messages in the movie were told from a unique perspective as metaphors or stories, which added to their weight because it made you stop and think. This movie asks a lot of bleak questions and answers many of them in the unfortunate affirmative. The story of the man falling down a 50-story building: As he passes each floor, he keeps telling himself, "So far, so good. So far, so good." But it's not the fall that matters. It's how you land. So, like Travis Bickle, the aggressive, rebellious youth continue their repetitive, self-destructive habits. But it's fine, 'cause they're still alive. But it's not the fall that matters. It's how they land. And eventually, they will land. Hate pushes against hate, but it's all good until it explodes. "Do you believe in God? That's the wrong question. Does God believe in us?" Are we capable of redemption, grace, and forgiveness? Or does hate just breed more hate? Unfortunately, Kassovitz thinks it's the latter. This movie is powerful and meaningful, but without hope.

Some scenes felt repetitive or drawn out. Even though I loved Kassovitz's central message and the metaphor of the falling man, its presence was a bit excessive and almost overbearing. The editing occasionally vexed me, but only slightly.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0113247/