Haywire (2011)

  This had Steven Soderbergh all over it.  The music could have been lifted directly from any of the Ocean's movies, the cast list is all A-listers (except for Channing "Mushmouth" Tatum and UFC star Gina Carano making her big screen debut), hell, even the title screens are trademarks.  What was absent was the usual wit and humor of his movies.  I don't know if that's the way he wanted it, if he saw her as more Evelyn Salt than Karen Sisco (from Out of Sight) or if he just didn't feel she could pull off the dialogue but it just felt a lot colder than his usual style.

Speaking of Gina Carano, she has been very up-front in interviews that she is not an actress and I have to agree.  The fight scenes were great but aside from that she really doesn't have any charisma.  I don't see her getting a lot of leading roles in the next few years, in case she was looking for a career change.

Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is a private contractor used for very specific missions.  Having recently broken up with her boss, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), she is looking forward to some downtime but there is a highly-placed Washington insider (Michael Douglas) who specifically requests her for a mission to rescue a kidnapped dissident in Barcelona.  It seems to go well, but Mallory uncovers a plot that implicates her boss and possibly a member of the State Department (Antonio Banderas).  Now she has to avoid assassins while trying to find the truth.

It's a fairly standard movie that felt almost like a throwback to some of the gritty 70s films like Get Carter or The French Connection.  Except more boring.  Pretty much any time someone was talking was a complete snoozefest.  I saw it with Rob and his friend Taylor and all of us had issues with the pacing of the film.  Definitely one to skip.