Steven Soderbergh continues with his experiments with non-professional actors in the lead roles (following The Girlfriend Experience) casting mixed martial arts star Gina Carano in the lead as the independant contractor (read spy) betrayed and set-up by her employers. She's not the strongest of actors, but then again she's better than the likes of Stallone, Arnie or Statham and has the moves and the potential to be better still, but is let down by the film.
Soderbergh does surround her with a lot of the best male actors in the business (and Channing Tatum), but here there seems to be hugely different approaches - Ewan MacGregor (yet again, making some horrible attempt at an American accent) and Michael Fassbender are too smirky, like naughty boys enjoying themselves and highly amused at the prospect of getting beat up by a girl. Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas at least put some effort in, but seem to think they're in an action flick with a comic side, whilst Tatum and Paxton are all deadly earnest. Even that would not be a big enough fault to sink the movie, if only...
The action held up, but it doesn't. Soderbergh, for all his undoubted strengths, just doesn't seem to be the right director to handle this kind of film. There are a couple of good fight scenes which really work, but otherwise the action is slow, laboured and flat. Carano can clearly handle herself, but too often Soderbergh creates scenes that feel too choreographed and fake with moves that look more like a pre-arranged wrestling move. Carano is also a fighter, not a free-runner and the Dublin rooftop chase seems dreadfully slow and laboured compared to many other examples.
Overall - 5.5/10 There's potential here, but the end result is disappointingly flat and unengaging. A case of a good director being wrong for the film.
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