Movie Review: The Laundromat

The Laundromat ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.

Written by: Scott Z. Burns based on the book by Jake Bernstein.

Starring: Gary Oldman (Jürgen Mossack), Antonio Banderas (Ramón Fonseca), Meryl Streep (Ellen Martin), Sharon Stone (Hannah), Melissa Rauch (Melanie), David Schwimmer (Matthew Quirk), James Cromwell (Joe Martin), Robert Patrick (Captain Perry), Matthias Schoenaerts (Maywood), Jeffrey Wright (Malchus Irvin Boncamper), Rosalind Chao (Gu Kailai), Nonso Anozie (Charles), Brenda Zamora (Mia Beltran), Miracle Washington (Astrid), Jessica Allain (Simone), Larry Wilmore (Jeff), David Schwimmer (Matthew Quirk), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Miranda).

 

I have to admit, I’m a little at a loss in trying to figure out what exactly Steven Soderbergh was going for with The Laundromat. Since his “return” to filmmaking with 2017’s Logan Lucky which marked his coming out of “retirement”, it seems like Soderbergh is more interested in experimenting than anything else. Logan Lucky was his attempt to make a different kind of Ocean’s 11-esque heist comedy/drama, Unsane was his (very underrated to me) attempt to make a film on an iPhone, seeing what could be done, and his first Netflix film of 2019 – High Flying Bird – was a film about disruption, made with disruptive technology, and released on the disruptive streaming service. And now comes The Laundromat which may best be described as Soderbergh attempting to ape Adam McKay’s The Big Short, with The Panama Papers in place of the 2008 stock market crash. And yet, even after watching this film, I kind of don’t feel as if I have any real handle on The Panama Papers themselves, or what exactly drew Soderbergh to this story of the rich acting like greedy assholes. The film has an extremely talented cast – including the world’s greatest actress, Meryl Streep, but strands them in a disjointed film with more side trips than plot. McKay and company found a way to turn Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book into a narrative film. Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns (whose much better directorial film, The Report, comes out this fall) fails to do the same with Jake Bernstein’s book. It feels like every time The Laundromat is just warming up, we cut to something else for 15-minute detour.

 

The film opens with two lawyers - Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas) – who were at the heart of The Panama Papers scandal – breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience about the invention of credit – and how that started everything. They will be a constant presence throughout the film, trying to break down complex financial issues that basically boil down to this – the rich can do whatever they want. They have shell companies inside of shell companies, all located in places with favorable laws, that allow them to do whatever the hell they want and get away with it. You get screwed over and want to sue – good luck with that, you’re likely just to find a now worthless shell company, that never really existed, administered by someone who won’t answer the phone.

 

This is what Ellen Martin (Streep) finds out when her husband – and 20 other people – are killed in a boating accident. This should mean a big payout, but it turns out that the boating company got their insurance from one of these places who is owned by a shell of a shell of a shell, and they won’t pay – so she ends up with next to nothing. She keeps on digging however to try and find out more information, and just gets increasingly frustrated. Then throughout the film, we see more stories – mostly of the rich and powerful – who can use these things as weapons, like Charles (Noso Anozie), a wealth African who is sleeping with his daughter’s college roommate, and tries to get himself out of trouble with her (and keep his wife from finding out) using bearer shares – without quite telling them what that actually means. There’s another vignette of a wealthy Englishman (Matthias Schoenaerts) who tries to use what he knows to blackmail a powerful Chinese woman (Rosalind Chao) and sees what that gets him. Or the story of Malchus Irvin Boncamper (Jeffrey Wright), who leaves on a tropical island, and signs all the papers for these worthless companies.

 

You can hardly fault the cast here – who seem to be trying, but other than Oldman, Banderas and Streep, they aren’t on screen long enough to really do much with their characters. Streep is probably in the movie too much – after a while, there isn’t much for her to do, and they try to fool you by putting her under a bad wig and makeup, and donning a horrible accent (when you know Streep could do any accent imaginable) just to keep her around. There is a smugness to the scenes with Oldman and Banderas that is probably appropriate given who they are playing – but that doesn’t make it much more interesting to watch. And it all comes to a close with a bizarre call to arms, that feels fairly disingenuous.

 

I’m sure that all involved had the best of intentions with this film – that they wanted to expose the secrets of the rich, powerful and greedy – and doesn’t even mind pointing out some of their own hypocrisy (at one point, Oldman mentions that people set up companies in Delaware to avoid taxes – including “the director of this film, who has five”). What they never quite figured out thought is how to make this all interesting for an audience. The Panama Papers is something we all heard about – it was a major scandal, and yet how often did anyone do a deep dive into them? There is a reason for that – it’s rather dry, even for someone like me who likes economics and no matter how Soderbergh and company dress it up, they cannot change that.

Movie Review: High Flying Bird

High Flying Bird *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.

Written by: Tarell Alvin McCraney.

Starring: André Holland (Ray Burke), Melvin Gregg (Erick Scott), Zazie Beetz (Sam), Bill Duke (Spencer), Sonja Sohn (Myra), Zachary Quinto (David Starr), Kyle MacLachlan (David Seton).

 

There is a part of me that wishes that Steven Soderbergh would go back to a more classical style of filmmaking – one where he isn’t trying to invent a new way of filming, and perhaps one where he hired a director of photography again – something he hasn’t done since Erin Brockovich in 2000. Soderbergh’s constant need for invention and innovative filmmaking techniques have produced a mixed bag of films over the past 20 years, so yes, there is some part of me that wishes he would just go back and make something like Out of Sight or The Limey again. And yet. And yet, I understand that for Soderbergh, it is basically evolve or perish, He wants to continue to push digital filmmaking in new, bold directions, and even if the results don’t always work, quite often they do. Like last year’s criminally underrated Unsane, his latest High Flying Bird was shot on an iPhone 7 – and while I don’t think the film is as good as Unsane, at least there seems to be a more legitimate reason to shoot the film on an iPhone. The film is about a sports agent who wants to encourage the athletes he represents to take back control over their sports – their bodies, themselves – and stop being a slave to the corporate, moneymaking empire that is built of their abilities. In a way, Soderbergh is doing the same thing – making an entire movie using the technology we carry around in our pocket every day. The medium is part of the message here.

 

The film stars the amazingly talented Andre Holland as Ray Burke, a sports agent who mainly represents basketball players. When the film opens, the NBA and the Players Association is trapped in a needless lockup – haggling over money of course – which has put a financial strain on everyone, if basketball plays aren’t getting paid, their agents aren’t getting paid either. And for people like Erick Scott (Melvin Gregg) – who was just drafted this year – he doesn’t have any money to fall back on. The owners do, of course. They’re billionaires – and can afford to wait for as long as it takes to get what they want (the movie, perhaps wisely, never really spells out what both sides in the lockout want – as a hockey fan, I know all about lockouts, and how deadly dull the details can be). So the pressure is on Burke – who may see his cushy job and its perks take a hit. But what can one agent do? We’re about to find out.

 

Soderbergh is, of course, a master of the heist film – and High Flying Bird is in its way a heist film in disguise. We watch the film as we see Ray do what he does in plain sight of everyone around him – and us in the audience – and yet we never truly see his whole masterplan until it all comes together. For a long time, he seems to be doing nothing less than fomenting revolution among the athletes – encouraging them to go outside the league to make their money. He is playing all sides – the owners (represented by Kyle MacLachlan), the Union (run by Sonja Sohn), the players (Melvin Gregg) and everyone else involved. His own (now former) assistant, Sam (Zazie Beetz) seems to be operating her own long con as well. And then there is Spencer (Bill Duke) – the local man who teaches basketball to all the kids in the neighborhood – but it’s not as simple as being in it for the pure love of the game.

 

The screenplay is by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who co-wrote the screenplay for Moonlight (and wrote the play it was based on) – and it basically gives Andre Holland a million words to say per minute, and Holland makes each and every one of them count. The rest of the cast ha to do whatever they can to keep up with him – and most perform admirably. I do wish some of the other characters were as well defined as Holland’s Ray – and I don’t think it was necessary to have the most prominent female character in the film sleep with the basketball star on her way up the corporate ladder – but it’s a good screenplay just the same.

 

High Flying Bird is a very entertaining film – mainly because of Holland, and the immediacy that the shooting style allows Soderbergh. There is an undeniable energy to the film as well, and it couldn’t be timelier – as it addresses the kind of issues that every professional sports league currently has to address, but doesn’t want to. I wish it had more seamlessly integrated the two. While Holland and company make everything sound good, it’s still feels like we are being talked at a lot of the time. Still, it’s great to see a film like this – great to see Soderbergh keep on experimenting and pushing forward. Yes, I kind of wish he would experiment less some times, but as long as he doesn’t retire again, I’m happy to watch whatever he puts out.

Movie Review: Unsane

Unsane **** / *****

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.

Written by: Jonathan Bernstein & James Greer.

Starring: Claire Foy (Sawyer Valentini), Joshua Leonard (David), Jay Pharoah (Nate Hoffman), Juno Temple (Violet), Amy Irving (Angela Valentini), Sarah Stiles (Jill), Polly McKie (Nurse Boles), Raul Costillo (Jacob), Gibson Frazier (Dr. Hawtorne), Erin Wilhelmi (Hayley), Aimee Mullins (Ashley Brighterhouse).

 

I think we all knew that Steven Soderbergh was never going to stay “retired” when he announced that was what he was doing after Side Effects and Behind the Candelabra in 2013. He was far too young and far too prolific and far too experimental to just stop. Since his “retirement” he has directed 20 episodes of the TV show The Knack, 7 episodes of another series Mosaic, which also added content for iPhones, acted as the cinematographer on Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to a film he did direct, and yes, two films in the last two years, and has more projects on the go. He never retired, just like Steven King never retired, despite having announced he was going to – and in both cases, we are richer for it.

 

Unsane is Soderbergh’s latest film – and it’s a terrific thriller, and a relevant one for the #MeToo moment we are currently in. Part of the reason Soderbergh was able to make this film so quickly is because he shot it on an iPhone in an aspect ratio of 1.56:1, a boxier ratio than most, and one that works tremendously well for a narrative about a woman who is trapped – or “boxed in” if you will. It works as a straight ahead thriller – with a terrific lead performance by Claire Foy – but there are undercurrents that make it more relevant than most.

 

Foy plays Sawyer Valentini, a very smart financial analyst, who just started a new job in a new city that she describes as being an opportunity “too good to pass up” but which we immediately sense is beneath her. He has to deal with the veiled come-ons of her new boss (nothing too overt that he couldn’t pass it all off as innocent if need be), and goes out on a date to a bar with someone she met on Tinder. Early in the date she tells her date that “this going to go exactly the way you want it to” – the only catch is that he is to never call or contact her again after tonight. When they go back to her place it’s safe to say that no, it doesn’t go the way he wants it to.

 

Sawyer will seek help from a counselor at the local hospital – dealing with the trauma of having a stalker, which is why she fled Boston in the first place. Everything seems to be going well – and when the session is over, she just has to fill out some forms. She soon finds herself being committed to the psyche ward – having apparently signed a voluntary agreement for a 24 hour hold, that when she gets violent, gets extended to a 7 day hold. Has she really gone crazy? What’s worse, she is convinced that one of the orderlies (Joshua Leonard) – is really her stalker, David, who has found a way to keep her locked up.

 

Unsane is a little too overly plotted – there are subplots about an insurance scam for instance that doesn’t add much, and some of the patients on the ward just seem to be there for window dresses, and to become convenient foils later in the plot. The exception is Nate (Jay Pharoah) who is apparently there on a 4 week opioid rehab stint, who helps Sawyer navigate the chaos she finds herself in. Strangely, the movie resolves the issue of whether Sawyer has lost her mind or not fairly soon into the narrative – and then becomes something altogether creepier. The already justly lauded “Blue Room” sequence is among the best work Soderbergh has ever done.

 

The film works for the #MeToo era not just because of its stalker storyline – although that is a big part of it. Her stalker isn’t an ex-boyfriend or anything, but a sad, pathetic man who built up an entire life for “them” because she was kind to her dying father, and by extension to him. He is the prototypical “nice guy”, who doesn’t understand when women are all attracted to jerks, and never give guys like him a chance. He understands Sawyer so much better than anyone else ever could you see – loves her more than anyone else ever could, and knows that she would love him too, if only she would give him a chance. It also works on a much subtler level as well however – as throughout the film, no one really seems to take Sawyer – or other women – seriously, when they say something is wrong. They are dismissed and diminished.

 

Foy anchors it all with her terrific lead performance. Having not seen The Crown (and not like Breathe), I finally understand the praise for Foy – she is absolutely terrific here, keeping the movie going. Sometimes, people concentrate too much on Soderbergh’s innovations – and less on his storytelling and the films themselves. He isn’t the first to shoot on an iPhone, but here, it really does work terrifically well.

 

The final act has a couple of weak moments that overall don’t quite do the film that preceded it justice – it really is all downhill after the Blue Room, so while the end is effective, it doesn’t hit you quite as hard as perhaps it should. That is a relatively minor flaw though in what I think is one of Soderbergh’s better films. We need someone like him to keep pushing boundaries – and doing so with movies that are worth it for more than those pushed boundaries.

Movie Review: Logan Lucky

Logan Lucky **** / *****

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.

Written by: Rebecca Blunt.

Starring: Channing Tatum (Jimmy Logan), Adam Driver (Clyde Logan), Riley Keough (Mellie Logan), Daniel Craig (Joe Bang), Hilary Swank (Agent Sarah Grayson), Seth MacFarlane (Max Chilblain), 

Katie Holmes (Bobbie Jo Logan Chapman), Katherine Waterston (Sylvia Harrison), Sebastian Stan (Dayton White), Brian Gleeson (Sam Bang), David Denman (Moody), Jack Quaid (Fish Bang), Dwight Yoakam (Warden Burns), Macon Blair (Brad Noonan), Charles Halford (Earl), Ann Mahoney (Gleema Purdue).

 

Since he “retired” from directing movies in 2013, Steven Soderbergh has kept busy – directing 20 episodes of his TV show The Knick - on which he also served as cinematographer and editor – two jobs he also did for Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to the film he directed. And now, he’s back directing movies again, with Logan Lucky. We knew Soderbergh wasn’t really retiring right? He’s one of the prolific directors out his generation – there are multiple years where he saw more than one of his features hit theaters, so although he’s undeniably right about so much of what he says about the state of the movie industry, it always seemed odd that one of its major players would just step away. And yet, perhaps it was a good thing for Soderbergh to do that. I think that perhaps he was too prolific for a time – and he spoiled us into thinking he’d always be around, producing high quality, entertaining genre films better than just about anyone else. Looking back at some of my reviews of his work, I think I was certainly guilty of taking Soderbergh for granted. Perhaps the reason I liked Logan Lucky as much as I did is because, without having Soderbergh around for a few years, you get to appreciate just how effortless he makes a heist film like this look.

 

The film stars frequent Soderbergh collaborator Channing Tatum as Jimmy – who was once going to be a football star, but hurt his leg, and is instead stuck in his dead-end West Virginia home town – a failed marriage in the rearview mirror, and a young daughter he adores – but no work to support himself. His brother, Clyde (Adam Driver) lost an arm (really, a forearm and a hand he says) in Iraq, and now works in a bar in the same town. There sister Mellie (Riley Keough) works in a beauty salon. Jimmy hatches a plan to rob the motor speedway – he had a short term job fixing sinkholes underneath it, and found out about their pneumatic tubes that takes the money to the vault. He’s going to need the help of his siblings of course, but also of an explosives and safe cracking expert. This is Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) – who wouldn’t seem to be available to pull a job since he is currently in-car-cer-rated – but the brothers have a plan to break him out so he can help with the robbery – and then back in, so he doesn’t get caught, and is out in 5 months like planned.

 

To say more would be to spoil the fun, so I won’t – except to say that this is the type of film Soderbergh excels at – the film plays with that knowledge, directly acknowledging the Ocean’s 11 movies that Soderbergh directed, although the film (written by Soderbergh’s wife, under an assumed name) has a touch of Coen brothers in it as well. For much of the running time, you really don’t know if these characters are complete and total idiots, or some sort of geniuses. The cast – most of whom are not from West Virginia – have fun with their exaggerated, mismatched accents. It was smart to cast Keough, Elvis’ granddaughter, who with this an American Honey is showing herself to be a great actress – and one who can plausibly play Southern, without devolving into caricature (the rest of the cast does that to a certain extent, so Keogh works as a counter note). I loved everyone in the cast pretty much though – Driver is probably the funniest, and Tatum shows that move star charisma the movie needs in the lead role.

 

The film works like a well-oiled-machine and even if you think you’ve spotted a plot hole, you really haven’t – the movie just hasn’t gotten to that point yet. It’s not an overly deep or overly original film – but it doesn’t have that ambition either. It is precisely the film it wants to be – and the most fun I’ve had at the movies since Baby Driver.

Movie Review: Behind the Candelabra

Behind the Candelabra
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.
Written by: Richard LaGravenese based on the book by Alex Thorleifson & Scott Thorson.
Starring: Michael Douglas (Liberace), Matt Damon (Scott Thorson), Scott Bakula (Bob Black), Dan Aykroyd (Seymour Heller), Nicky Katt (Mr. Y), Rob Lowe (Dr. Jack Startz), Debbie Reynolds (Frances), Tom Papa (Ray Arnett), Paul Reiser (Mr. Felder), Bruce Ramsay (Carlucci), Jane Morris (Rose Carracappa), Garrett M. Brown (Joe Carracappa), David Koechner (Adoption Attorney).

Throughout his directing career, which is now apparently over, Steven Soderbergh has dabbled in many different genres. He’s made heist films, thrillers, action movies, legal dramas, comedies, crime movies, science fiction, etc. and his budgets has ranged from huge to miniscule. For his apparent final film, he sets his sets on the celebrity biopic – and picks an unlikely subject – Liberace. Liberace was well before my time – by the time I heard of him, he was already dead, and people were already making fun of him as being the least closeted gay celebrity ever who still denied he was gay. My knowledge of the man is limited – but I still found Behind the Candelabra to be a fascinating film. What’s more, I think it also represented a slight step forward for “gay” movies. For most of cinema history, of course, gays weren’t portrayed at all, or else were merely hinted at. When filmmakers were finally “allowed” to have gay characters, they were often mocked or else portrayed as perverts. When that stopped, Hollywood felt the need to put gay characters either in genres where audiences would be comfortable – like the courtroom drama of Philadelphia (1993) or else as the non-sexualized best friend of the hero – like My Best Friend’s Wedding or As Good As It Gets (both 1997). We then moved into the phase of the “gay martyr” movie – like Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and Brokeback Mountain (2005) – two excellent films in their own right, but two films that definitely show their characters as victims – because they were. What is refreshing about Behind the Candelabra is that it is a film with two movie stars – Michael Douglas and Matt Damon – who are both playing gay characters, who are not fully defined by their being gay. The movie is a love story, yes, but an extremely creepy one – one where neither character is a villain, but both are cleared flawed, and each uses the other to get what they want. In short, both characters are as flawed as real people – both gay and straight – are.

While it is possible to make an all-encompassing biopic – which follows some from birth to death – Behind the Candelabra takes the smarter tactic of focusing on just a short period of time. By the time we meet Liberace, his greatest days of fame are behind him – he is aging, and in less than 10 years, he’ll be dead. But that hasn’t slowed him down any – he still performs nightly to adoring crowds in Las Vegas – and he’s still Mr. Showmanship. We first see him on stage through the eyes of Scott Thorson, a young, animal loving hunk who comes to Vegas with his “new friend” Bob, and is amazed that such an old crowd would embrace a show “this gay”. “They don’t know he’s gay” Bob tells him. By this point, Liberace has become a gay icon, but he’s still pretending to be straight – pretending he’s “never found the right woman”. His agent Seymour takes goes to great lengths to cover up for Liberace – who will still sue anyone who calls him gay (he even won a libel case in England against a British tabloid). How many people actually believed Liberace was straight is questionable – he seems like so outwardly, stereotypically gay – yet this was perhaps a more “innocent” time.

Bob is friends with “Lee” and so he introduces Scott to him after the show. Scott is star struck by Liberace – and Liberace is immediately attracted to Scott. It doesn’t take long for Liberace to convince Scott to move in with him – as an “employee”, although we don’t actually see anything that would classify as work. They both know the reason he’s there – but along the way, Scott forgets. At first, the two are inseparable – Liberace showers him with money and gifts – fires employees when Scott feels they have “disrespected” him, and gotten rid of his other boy toys. This should all be a sign to Scott that this isn’t going to last – that eventually Liberace will set his sights on a newer model – but he doesn’t. He even allows himself to undergo plastic surgery to make him look more like Liberace – which is even creepier than what James Stewart does to Kim Novak in Vertigo.

The movie is a triumph on many levels – from the perfectly over-the-top art direction in Liberace’s mansions, to his even more flamboyant costumes, to Richard LaGravenese’s smart, funny, insightful screenplay and Soderbergh’s excellent direction – this may be a TV movie, but it’s more cinematic than most other TV movies I have ever seen – even other HBO films directed by the likes of Barry Levinson and David Mamet. Soderbergh’s camera glides effortlessly through the opulent halls of Liberace’s mansions, captures what made him a star on stage, and doesn’t flinch away from the sex scenes. No, there is nothing overtly graphic here, but Soderbergh doesn’t shy away from showing both sex and intimacy between these characters.

But the biggest triumph has to be the acting. If this were a theatrical release, Michael Douglas may well have received an Oscar nomination for his pitch-perfect performance as Liberace (as it stands, I suspect he’ll have to settle for every TV award there is). He nails the voice and mannerisms of Liberace – but that’s just the surface of his performance. He gets deeper into the deep seeded insecurities, the vanity and the selfishness of the character – but somehow still makes Liberace somewhat likable. Yes, he is a creep in many ways – a “dirty old man” who uses his money and celebrity to pretty do whatever he wants – but when he finally does turn on Scott, can you really blame him? Damon perhaps has the even more difficult role, and even though he is perhaps two decades too old for the role (the real Thornson was in his teens and early 20s during his time with Liberace), he is so good in the role, I really didn’t care. He makes Thorson into an initially sweet, naïve young hunk, who slowly turns into a diva – you can be a diva when you’re Liberace and have the money, fame and talent to back it up – but when you’re Liberace’s lover, that’s dangerous. Damon nails it. The supporting cast is filled with wonderful notes – none of the rest of the cast really stands out as a full developed character, but they all have good moments – Debbie Reynolds as Liberace’s mother playing with the slot machines, Dan Ackroyd as his agent doing all the dirty work, Nicky Katt as a slimy drug dealer, Scott Bakula as the seemingly wiser older man who gives Scott horrible advice, and especially Rob Lowe – made up ridiculously as a plastic surgeon, who has had far too much work done. They add flavor to the background – and the movie is improved greatly as a result.

Soderbergh has said this is his last film as a director – and now he’s going to retire (although that obviously means something different to him than it does to the rest of us since he’s already working on a TV miniseries). He recently held court and told the world what he thought of the “State of Film” – and it wasn’t pretty. But Behind the Candelabra is a triumph for Soderbergh – one of his best films, and perhaps could serve as a model for what he can do in the future if he decides to “un-retire”. No studio wanted to make this film because they considered it “too gay”. Yet, Soderbergh still got it made, still got two movie stars to be in it, still got it into the Official Competition in Cannes, still received a lot of attention in the media and praise by critics, and will almost certainly still win a slew of awards. It’s hard to imagine Behind the Candelabra turning out any better had it been financed by a studio and released theatrically. What was Soderbergh complaining about?

Movie Review: Side Effects

Side Effects
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Scott Z. Burns.
Starring: Rooney Mara (Emily Taylor), Jude Law (Dr. Jonathan Banks), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Dr. Victoria Siebert), Channing Tatum (Martin Taylor), Vinessa Shaw (Dierdre Banks), Ann Dowd (Martin’s Mother), Polly Draper (Emily's Boss), Michael Nathanson (Assistant District Attorney), Sheila Tapia (Emily's Attorney).

Steven Soderbergh’s is a tight, nifty little thriller. It is well acted by the entire cast, well written by longtime Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burn, contains a marvelous score by Thomas Newman – the type of score that elevates the entire movie, but will never be nominated for an Oscar, and is well directed by Soderbergh himself – who of course, also served as editor and cinematographer. And yet, as good as the movie is – and it is quite good – I could not help but be slightly underwhelmed by the film. Walking into the theater, I was pretty sure I knew how the movie was going to end (thanks trailers!) and sure enough, everything played out pretty much exactly as I expected it would. Considering this is apparently the last feature film by Soderbergh (he will release his apparently final film, Behind the Candelabra on HBO later this year), I was a little let down. Soderbergh had entered a very good segment of his career – making great little genre films like Haywire, Contagion and Magic Mike, and while Side Effects is good, it doesn’t quite measure up.

The movie stars Rooney Mara as Emily Taylor. She is married to Martin (Channing Tatum) who is just getting out of jail after four years for insider trading (perhaps the most preposterous of the movie’s plot points is that anyone on Wall Street would go to jail for anything they do). But while she loves her husband, she is also depressed – trying her best to put on a happy face, but inwardly she’s hurting. After a “cry for help” suicide attempt, where she drives her car into a wall, a psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) is called in for a consult – and while he agrees to let her go, he also insists that she start going to therapy – and start taking anti-depressants. They try a few drugs, and nothing works, but then Emily suggests one of the new drugs – you know the ones on TV with happy people running through a meadow, while a voiceover lists off dozens of possible side effects. Banks doesn’t see the harm in trying her on them – and after consulting with her old doctor Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones), he writes a prescription. And he keeps her on them even after she starts sleepwalking, and preparing meals in her sleep. You probably see where this is going, but if you don’t, I won’t spoil it for you. But, of course, it leads to movie’s psychological thriller roots – where one of Emily or Jonathan, is going to have to pay for what Emily does. And all is not precisely what it appears to be.

The performances in the movie are quite good. I was a little disappointed that after her great performance in last year’s Compliance (the best performance NOT nominated for an Oscar in 2012), that Ann Dowd is given nothing to do as Martin’s mother – but she’s a character actress, and she plays her role well. Tatum is good as the Wall Street guy, who made a mistake, has paid for it, and really does seem to want to turn his life around. Catherine Zeta-Jones is very good as Dr. Siebert – but Ebert’s law of economy of characters applies with her. Essentially, because Zeta-Jones is a movie star (not to mention an Oscar winner), you know immediately that her role will turn out to be far more complicated than it at first appears. Still, she plays it well. It’s really the two main performances that are excellent. Law plays Banks as cocksure and confident, until his life starts to completely unravel, and seems powerless to stop it – and than starts to seem paranoid. Is he right, or just so convinced that he could not be wrong that he’s grasping at straws? And Rooney Mara is even better as Emily, as she spirals down into depression, and tries to keep herself under control.

Side Effects certainly takes us into Hitchcock territory – with a modern pharmaceutical twist.  We have the “innocent man wrongly accused” and lying women, and as I mentioned before, an excellent score by Thomas Newman, who may just be the best composer working right now at twisting classic movie score elements for modern use (just look at his score for Soderbergh’s The Good German, the only good thing about the film, or how he twists Bond music in Skyfall). The screenplay is well written, and Soderbergh could do this type of thriller in his sleep, but doesn’t. He pulls out some interesting things from his seemingly bottomless bag of tricks.

But perhaps it’s harder now to make a Hitchcockian thriller than it was in Hitchcock’s day. Modern audiences sit there waiting for the other shoe to drop – the twist ending they aren’t supposed to see coming. But, unfortunately for Side Effects, I did see the twist coming, before I even sat down in the theater. So essentially, I spent much of the movie waiting for the characters to catch up to me.

Side Effects is a good movie. It is rare to see a thriller like this as well acted and directed as Side Effects is. Undoubtedly, unless you still need to catch up on some Oscar films, Side Effects is the best film to see in theaters right now. But considering its early February, which typically (along with January) is when studios dump a lot of crap into theaters, that’s not saying very much. Perhaps my disappointment in Side Effects has more to do with the fact that unless Soderbergh is lying or changes his mind, I will never walk into a theater to see a new Soderbergh film again. He has been a pretty consistent director since the late 1990s – producing at least one decent to great film seemingly every year. And Side Effects is decent. But from the director who has produced such films as Out of Sight, The Limey, Traffic, Contagion, Haywire and Magic Mike (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg), Side Effects is certainly going out with a bit of a whimper instead of a bang.

Ranking Steven Soderbergh

So according to Steven Soderbergh, after Side Effects, to be released this Friday, and his HBO biopic of Liberace, Behind the Candelabra, to be released later this year, he will retire. I don’t quite know if I believe that – Side Effects will be his fourth film released since my daughter was born – and she’ll be 18 months old a week after it opens. So here’s hoping it’s not a retirement but a break, because Soderbergh is one of the best genre filmmakers working right now. Not including his TV work (on one series, and one miniseries) or his two Spalding Gray docs, or various shorts (and one unreleased film), Soderbergh has made 23 films – and I’ve seen 22 of them (sorry 1995’s Underneath). I figured since Side Effects may just be his last theatrical film, it was time to go back and look and his work up until now. So below are the 22 Soderbergh films I have seen – from worst to best.

22. The Good German (2006)

I hate The Good German. The Joseph Kanon book on which the movie is based is brilliant – a novel about moral relativism, that calls into question the actions of everyone in the novel. Soderbergh treated the novel as an excuse to indulge his technical fantasies. And make no mistake about it – Soderbergh’s black and white photography is exquisite – and Thomas Newman’s score is one of the best in recent memory. But The Good German is supposed to be about weighty moral questions – questions the novel takes seriously, and Soderbergh casts aside because he’s more interested in making his film look good than he is considering what his changes to the story (which seem to be motivated solely on the basis of how much he make the film resemble Casablanca, even if it doesn’t fit) than about what it all actually means. The Good German was a rare miss for Soderbergh – but damn it if it didn’t miss it by a mile.

21. Ocean’s 12 (2004)

With Ocean’s 12, Soderbergh and company jumped the shark. Getting together a large cast of movie stars to pull off a casino heist worked the first time, so why not add even more movie stars and try to do it all over again. It may well have worked, except for one thing – there’s no actual plot to Ocean’s 12. The movie is solely about watching movie stars sit around, look pretty and exchange charming, witty banter for two hours. When they finally decide to throw in a heist (I assume because the screenplay was getting long, and they felt they had to squeeze one in), its stupid and silly. The original film worked because of the charm of the cast yes, but also because it was tightly plotted. This one wasn’t plotted at all.

20. Full Frontal (2002)

Soderbergh was one of the earliest adopters of digital technology, and if you watch Full Frontal today (and there’s little reason to), you will just how amazingly far the technology has come in 11 years. This is the ugliest film that Soderbergh has ever made, although perhaps that was the intent. I do not think however the intent was to have this seemingly improvised film feel so amateurish throughout. There are parts of the movie to admire – Nicky Katt as an actor playing Hitler in a new play is hilarious – and Mary McCormack (why she never really broke out, I’m not sure) as a masseuse are wonderful. And Brad Pitt’s cameo as Brad Pitt, horrible actor, is among the funniest things I can recall seeing in a Soderbergh film. But overall this film, with its film within a film, within a documentary structure, and the assortment of strange characters, played by talented actors making fools of themselves is just plain bad.

19. Eros (2004)

There is a reason to see Eros – a trio of short films made by three different directors about the subject of sex. And that reason is to see Wong Kar Wai’s brilliant segment The Hand, with a never sexier Gong Li (and that’s saying something) as a prostitute who has uses her sexual prowess to control a tailor. That segment is a small masterwork in a brilliant career. The reason NOT to see Eros would be to avoid Michelangelo Antonioni’s horrible segment – The Dangerous Thread of Things, where the old Italian master embarrasses himself. Somewhere in between those two segments is Soderbergh’s Equilibrium. It’s odd in that it stars Robert Downey Jr. and Alan Arkin, who unlike the principles in the other two segments, are not sleeping with each other. Instead, Downey does what Downey does best – verbally riff, as he tells Arkin, his shrink, about a sexual dream he cannot get out of his head, and Arkin stops listens when through a window, he sees someone he knows, and tries to mime that they meet up later (Downey, of course, cannot see this). As a sketch, it’s funny, and of course both Downey and Arkin are immensely talented, and they carry the segment. What the hell it’s doing sandwiched between the other two segments, I have no fricking idea. But what the film for Wong’s segment – it’s masterful – and stick around to be amused by Soderbergh’s. Than for God’s sake, turn the TV off. It’s better to remember Antonioni for Red Desert and L’Aventurra,  L’Eclisse and Blowup and The Passenger, and probably many of his other films that I have not seen, but I have a hard time imagining the could possibly be worse than what he made here (sadly, his last directorial credit).

18. Ocean’s 13 (2007)

While Ocean’s 13 is a definite step-up from Ocean’s 12 – which essentially had no plot – it does go the other way too much, by having way too much plot, all of it preposterous, and none of it as entertaining as when these people first got together and made Ocean’s 11. Once again, the same ragtag group of movie stars come together to plot an elaborate casino heist, and once again, it is fun to see this actors who are quite clearly having a blast (although it wears a little thin when you realize they had more fun making the movie than you are watching it). Al Pacino is a great addition as the bad guy this time around, and the movie is an entertaining way to waste two hours if you don’t want to think. But the bottom line is simple – they should have stopped at 11.

17. Kafka (1991)

Kafka suffers from the same thing that many sophomore films by filmmakers whose first film were huge hits do – over ambition. The film stars Jeremy Irons as the famed Czech writer, lost in a black and white cinemascape that is brilliantly well designed, as the writer goes searching for his missing friend. The film is partly inspired by Kafka and his work, but also inspired by a lot of film noir, and for the color climax – science fiction. It is a confusing film, and in no way an altogether successful one, as the elements of the plot don’t really seem to fit together in any meaningful way. And yet, the film is quite something to simply sit back and look at. As complex as his breakthrough, sex lies and videotape, was simple, Kafka doesn’t really work, but it’s interesting to watch.

16. Erin Brockovich (2000)

It’s hard to dislike Erin Brockovich – it is a quality, mainstream legal drama, with a fine, Oscar winning performance by Julia Roberts as the crusading, single mother who spearheads a lawsuit that ends up with a huge settlement. The movie gives Roberts the type of sassy, spunky dialogue that she delivers best, and also gives her an opportunity to cry at the victim’s pain – oh and shows off her breasts in pretty much every scene in the film. The film is never less than engaging and entertaining. Yet, it also feels somewhat hollow – a little too simplistic for such an inspiring true story. Roberts so dominates the film that no one else really registers. It’s a fine movie, but as one of only two Soderbergh films ever to received a Best Picture and Best Director nomination, it seems like an odd choice.

15. Schizopolis (1996)

I’m not going to try to explain Schizopolis, nor am I’m going to try and convince someone who hates it that they are wrong. This is the strangest film of Soderbergh’s career by far. The film starts out with Soderbergh, presumably playing himself (although he’ll play so many characters throughout the film, perhaps not) coming up to a lectern and announcing that Schizopolis is the most important film of our time, and if you don’t get it, that’s your fault. And it ends with Soderbergh getting back up and answering questions from the audience – questions that we do not hear, and Soderbergh’s answers do not let us in on what was asked. In between, Soderbergh will play Fletcher, a man whose wife is cheating on him with a dentist, the dentist himself, and another lover of his wife’s, who speaks Italian, French and Japanese, and whose dialogue is subtitled (and who, by the way, I don’t think can speak Italian, French or Japanese). Oh, and there’s a Scientology like religious movement/cult called Eventualism that Soderbergh is also the L. Ron Hubbard like creator of. The film is absurd in the extreme, and overall adds up to absolutely nothing. But the individual moments in the film are sometimes hilarious and brilliant. Soderbergh has often said making this film recharged his batteries after the bad experience he had making Underneath, and allowed him to regain his passion for filmmaking. So, good for him. And he’s also right about something else – if you don’t understand Schizopolis, it is your fault, because there is nothing here to understand. The film is exactly what it appears to be – whatever the hell that is.

14. King of the Hill (1993)

When you look at Sodebergh’s filmography, King of the Hill stands out as something completely different than anything else he has ever made. I mean that in mainly a good way. I still don’t know why, 19 years later, he decided to make this his third film, but the result is a fascinating film. It stars young Jesse Bradford as a 12-year old boy in the great depression, who is left to fend for himself – and does so amazingly well. It is the story of how this boy thrives when he’s left by himself – how he uses his charm and intelligence to get what he needs. It is an odd film for Sodebergh to make – nothing he did before or since really fits with it – but for whatever reason, he seems to have connected with this material, and made an very good little film out of it.

13. Contagion (2011)

Contagion is a scarily plausible thriller about a global epidemic that ends up killing millions. It is bound to happen sooner or later – we hear constantly about new superbugs, but for the most part, they end fizzling out without much impact. But Contagion is about the superbug that doesn’t. It tells multiple storylines – about Patient Zero (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her husband (Matt Damon), who grows increasingly paranoid, about the CDC people trying to contain it (including a poignant subplot with Kate Winslet), a profiteering blogger (Jude Law) who exploits everyone’s fears, and other subplot, as it shows the disease spreading, and with it the fear. This is straight ahead genre filmmaking of the highest order for Soderbergh. Not all the subplots are necessary (sorry Marion Cotlliard, I love you, but your subplot doesn’t need to be here), but mainly plausibly, realistically terrifying.

12. The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

Soderbergh excels at finding actors who may never again be great in a movie, but are perfect for his. For The Girlfriend Experience, he cast Sasha Grey, whose day job is as a porn star. He didn’t cast her because he wanted an actress that was willing to have sex on screen – because she doesn’t in this movie. He cast her, because she is smart, she is sexy and she is a businesswoman in real life, just like her character in the movie. In the film, she plays Chelsea, a high end prostitute, who specializes in providing “the girlfriend experience” – that is on her “dates” with her clients, she doesn’t act like a prostitute, but as their girlfriend. Her clients are all rich, and all work in the stock market (like her “real” boyfriend), and all like to talk to her – reveal themselves to her, and tell her how to invest her money. What they don’t expect is that perhaps she is a better businessperson than they are – she makes money off something that will never crash – sex. Soderbergh set the film in the lead up to the 2008 Financial meltdown, and the basic point of the movie is this – that there is no difference between what Grey’s character in the does, and what her clients do every day – they lie about who they are, what they want, what they know, all to make their client feel better. At least her clients know they are being fucked.

11. Haywire (2012)

I still do not understand why audiences pretty roundly rejected Soderbergh’s action movie from last January. He is an expertly crafted action film, with great, bone crunching, jaw dropping fight sequences that are actually REAL and not just CGI, a woman can kicks all the men’s ass’s (and for once, you actually believe she can, because while Gina Carano may not be Meryl Streep, she certainly can kick ass) and has an excellent supporting cast of slimy men – Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Channing Tatum (who isn’t quite so slimy). Haywire is a classic, old school, kick ass action film – and one of 2012’s great entertainments. Why didn’t audiences notice? I don’t know, but Haywire is excellent.

10. sex, lies and videotape (1989)

Soderbergh’s debut film earns a place in his top 10 because it is undeniably one of the most influential American indie films ever. Soderbergh became the face of the Sundance generation with this film – that went on to win the Palme D’Or at Cannes – and helped to usher in a new era of American indies. Yes, the film has undeniably aged in the two decades since it was released – and because there have been so many copies of it over the years, the impact has dimmed at least a little bit. Yet, mainly the film still works. James Spader is still at his creepy best as the strange old friend who shows up one day, moves in, and soon throws everything into tumult – not that it wasn’t already, but he brings it out into the open. The rest of the cast – Andie McDowell, Peter Gallagher and especially Laura San Giacomo are also excellent. Yes, the film has aged. But that doesn’t mean it still isn’t an important film – or an excellent one.

9. Magic Mike (2012)

Who would have guess that a movie about male strippers would be one of Soderbergh’s best films? Yet it is, because Soderbergh has an intelligent screenplay, that sees this world for all the fun it can be, and also it’s sleazy underbelly. It is basically structured like an old fashioned Hollywood story – with a young kid (Channing Tatum) becoming a star in his limited world, and then falling in love with the picture of female perfection (Cody Horn), and deciding to leave it all behind for love. Tatum and Horn are excellent in the movie, but the supporting cast is even better. Olivia Munn is wonderful in a small role that shows that women can be just as shallow and superficial as men can, and best of all is Matthew McConaghey, all Southern charm, until you test him, and he gets all vicious pimp on you. Magic Mike is fun to be sure, but is also well made, well-acted and surprisingly touching. A wonderful little film.

8. Bubble (2005)

Of all Soderbergh’s low budget experiments, Bubble is the most successful – the most complete film. It stars three non-professional actors, who play workers at a doll factory in Ohio. Martha (Debbie Doebereiner) is overweight, lonely and taking care of her elderly father. Kyle (Dustin James Ashley) is passive, shy, beaten down by life who spends much of his home life in a pot fuelled haze. Martha and Kyle are friends – he depends on her for rides, and in return supplies friendship, and that seems to be it. But when Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins), a young single mother shows up, and may have designs on Kyle (perhaps because he’s the only male option), things go downhill. Bubble is a quiet film, attuned to the beats of everyday life. It is a murder mystery only nominally – it doesn’t take much to figure it out, and when the police show up, played by real police officers, the outcome is never in doubt. The film is about the quiet, sad, lonely lives of these three people. Soderbergh, who often uses style over substance, does the opposite here. Bubble is a one of a kind film of Soderbergh’s resume – and one that deserves to be seen by more people.

7. Ocean’s 11 (2001)

I was hard on both Ocean’s 12 and 13, because, well, they deserved it – and also because Ocean’s 11 is one of the great entertainments on Soderbergh’s resume. No, the film is no more realistic or plausible than the other two, but damn it all if isn’t a hell of a lot more entertaining. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia are all at the top of their games – and are surrounded by a cast having a blast – Casey Affleck, Scotty Caan, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner, etc. The plan is elaborate, and really did have me guessing the first time through, and still manages to entertain me to no end whenever the film comes on TV (which is often). I’m certainly not going to argue that Ocean’s 11 is some sort of masterpiece, but as pure movie entertainment, it is tough to beat.

6. The Limey (1999)

The Limey is perhaps the simplest film of Soderbergh’s resume – a straight ahead revenge story – but one told with wit and style to spare. It stars Terrence Stamp as a just released British criminal who comes to L.A. to get revenge for the murder of his daughter. He knows Peter Fonda is responsible for it, and he comes at him straight on – no mincing words with him. Stamp is great in the movie – all action, few words, and he just keeps coming. Soderbergh’s style elevates the movie – the unforgettable scene where, in the background, we see Stamp throw a bodyguard over a railing to his death below is the best single shot of Soderbergh’s career. Yet as stripped down as The Limey is, there is also an air of regret to the film – we see clips of Stamp as a young man (from the movie Poor Cow), and we get Fonda talking about his past. Both of these men are well past the point where they are any use to anyone – but that doesn’t stop them from trying. A great little genre film.

5. The Informant (2009)
The Informant tells the improbably but true story of Mark Whitacre, an executive with Archer Daniels Midland, who is questioned by the FBI as part of a potential corporate espionage case, is cleared, and then, for no reason, confesses to them that ADM is involved in price fixing, becomes a FBI informant to help them gather the necessary evidence, and while working with them, proceeds to embezzle $9 million from the company, all the while thinking that once the truth comes out, he’ll be seen as a hero, and can take over the company. Matt Damon plays Whitacre in one of his best performances – as a man who seems utterly without guile or cunning, completely naïve as to how things are going to work out, and yet somewhat intelligent to keep all the balls in the air. The Informant is not quite a comedy, not quite a corporate thriller, and yet somehow both. It is one of the odder films on Soderbergh’s resume – and one of the best.

4. Solaris (2002)

With Solaris, Soderbergh went out a remade an acknowledged masterpiece by an acknowledged cinema genius – Andrei Tarkovsky. I hadn’t seen Tarkovsky’s film when I saw Soderbergh’s remake – but once I finally did see the film, I went back and watched Soderbergh’s film again – and was amazed that I was still intrigued and fascinated by it. No, it is not the masterpiece that Tarkovsky’s film is – few are – but I do think that perhaps watching Soderbergh’s version first – and then Tarkovsky’s may be the way to go. Soderbergh’s film is more than an hour shorter than Tarkovsky’s – the characters and themes clearer, the pacing while slow, less ponderous. This is all part and parcel with how Tarkovsky works, and part of what makes Solaris a masterpiece. But Soderbergh’s film also works. It stars George Clooney in one of his best performances as Kelvin, a shrink who heads up to a space station after a death to “council” the survivors – and wakes up to find his wife, who recently killed herself, there with him. The space station is orbiting a strange planet – Solaris – who can read minds, and create people out of their memories, which is what has happened. But therein lies the catch – because the version of Clooney’s wife that the planet creates is not the “real” woman – because no one knows everything about another person, so this “replicate” is only part a person – with a huge hole in the center – the part of ourselves we keep to ourselves. Audiences hated the film – probably because it was marketed as a sexy George Clooney sci-fi film instead of a ponderous film about the nature of death and human relationship. It probably would have done better marketed as an art-house movie. But here’s hoping in that now that we’re 10 years removed from its release, that Soderbergh’s Solaris can get the praise is deserves.

3. Che (2008)

Soderbergh’s epic, two part, 258 minute biopic of Che Guevera is a masterpiece for precisely the reason why it didn’t satisfy many people in the audience – it doesn’t portray Che either as a romantic hero, as some see him, or as a ruthless murderer, as others do. The film doesn’t take sides. What it does do is show Che, moment to moment, day to day, in combat as he fights and wins a revolution in Cuba, and then fights and loses a revolution in Bolivia. The first part – The Argentine – is a more conventional biopic (not conventional mind you, just more conventional than the second) – as it does show Che as he comes to Cuba, and intercuts scenes of the revolution with his speech to the U.N. This is probably what people were expecting. The second part, Guerilla, is completely self-contained – has Che in the jungles of Bolivia, fighting a losing battle, because while the people rose up and supported them in Cuba, they don’t in Bolivia. What the film really does is show Che as doggedly, stubbornly persistent – unwilling and unable to compromise his own sense of right and wrong, or give up even when he knows he is defeated. The film is epic in length, but needs to be. It is also one of Soderbergh’s masterpieces – sadly, audiences didn’t care, but you should.

2. Out of Sight (1998)

For some reason, it took a long time to properly do an Elmore Leonard crime movie. Barry Sonnefeld’s 1995 Get Shorty was the first to get it right, and then in 1997 and 1998 there were twin masterworks – Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, and Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight. This was the film that start Soderbergh’s fruitful collaboration with George Clooney – and proved there would be life after ER for him. It is also the best work Jennifer Lopez has ever done. The supporting cast – Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Michael Keaton (playing the same role he did in Jackie Brown) and especially Albert Brooks are all great. But it is Soderbergh’s direction that is the true star here – from the now infamous barroom/bed room flirtation and sex scene, to the handling of all the action sequences, and Scott Frank’s brilliant screenplay (containing much of Leonard’s original dialogue), Out of Sight is one the best crime movies of the 1990s – and one of Soderbergh’s very best films.

1. Traffic (2000)

When Soderbergh won the Oscar for Best Director for Traffic he did a very rare thing – winning an Oscar for the Best work of his career. That hardly ever happens, but it did for Soderbergh. Traffic is his masterpiece – an epic crime film about the futile drug war America is engaged in, following three different stories. In DC, the newly appointed drug czar (Michael Douglas) struggles with his new job, as his daughter (Erika Christensen) sinks into addiction. In California, a rich housewife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) finds out what her husband really does, and proves she can be just as ruthless when she needs to take over. And in the best, Benicio Del Toro’s Oscar winning performance as perhaps the only honest cop in Mexico, trying to fight the cartels. Working as his own cinematographer (as we would from here on out), Soderbergh gives us segment its own distinct look and color palette. The movie comes together, looking at both the large scale impact of drug and the war against them, and the personal level as well. Soderbergh has made a lot of great films in his career – none better than Traffic.

Movie Review: Haywire

Haywire *** ½

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.

Written by: Lem Dobbs.

Starring: Gina Carano (Mallory), Ewan McGregor (Kenneth), Michael Fassbender (Paul), Channing Tatum (Aaron), Antonio Banderas (Rodrigo). Michael Douglas (Coblenz), Michael Angarano (Scott), Mathieu Kassovitz (Studer), Bill Paxton (Mr. Kane), Anthony Brandon Wong (Jiang).

If the Italian neo-realists were right, and everyone can play one role better than anyone else – themselves – than Steven Soderbergh seems to have taken this to heart. From the small town Ohio residents in Bubble to porn star Sasha Grey as a high end prostitute in The Girlfriend Experience and now MMA star Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, a highly trained “specialist” working for a private firm doing sensitive jobs, Soderbergh has not shied away from casting non-professional actors in his movies. No, none of these people are playing themselves (they probably come closest in Bubble), but they are more convincing in their roles than professional actors would be. Gina Carano, star of Haywire, is probably never going to win an Oscar – and Meryl Streep doesn’t have to worry about competition – but she plays the role of Mallory better than any professional actor I could think of. Because of her MMA training, it allows Soderbergh to stage some of the best hand to hand fight scenes in recent memory – and not pull any punches. The punches, kicks, chokes, slams all look and feel like they hurt – and when Mallory ends up victorious in these matchups, we have no trouble believing it, like we do sometimes when women fight men in the movies. You can tell in each moment that it really is Carano involved in these fight scenes – and you can tell that she really would kick the other guy’s ass.

The plot of Haywire is standard issue action/thriller stuff – with Mallory having to unravel a conspiracy that aims to set her up for murdering someone in Dublin that she saved in Barcelona. Written by Lem Dobbs, the movie shares much in common with his previous collaboration with Soderbergh – the wonderful The Limey (1999), which was a stripped to the bone revenge thriller that gave Terrence Stamp perhaps the best role of his career. To quote Roger Ebert, the movie is not about what it’s about, but how it’s about it. And Haywire is elevated above its genre roots by Soderbergh’s expert direction, and the performances by the entire cast.

To make the plot seem a little more complicated than it actually is, Soderbergh cuts back and forth in time. Before we know anything about Mallory, or what is happening to her, we see her in upstate New York, in a little road side diner. When a car pulls up outside, and Aaron (Channing Tatum) pulls up, she simply mutters “Shit”, and we know something bad is about to happen. After a tense conversation between the two, Aaron throws coffee in Mallory’s face, and the films first expert fistfight takes place between the two of them – with Mallory eventually winning, and hitting the road with a customer who helped her – Scott (Michael Angarano), who she tells her story to.

Soderbergh is a great director, who has said that following his epic masterpiece Che a few years ago, the desire to make “serious” movies left him, and now he just wants to make audience friendly thrillers. You can hardly blame him, as Che is one of the great accomplishments of his career – and no one seemed to notice. His last film, Contagion released just a few months ago, was an icy cold disease outbreak thriller – and was handled wonderfully. Now comes Haywire, which in the hands of another director could have easily been shit. But in the hands of Soderbergh, becomes one of the best action movies in recent memory. I imagine what Michael Bay would have done with the wonderful chase sequence through the streets and rooftops of Dublin – it would have been so rapidly edited, featured such loud, pulsating music that it would have been incoherent. But Soderbergh takes a different path – his shots last a long time in this sequence, you catch the glimpses of Mallory’s pursuers in the background, and when the fight scenes come, they are expertly choreographed, and done with a minimum of editing. Most action sequences in movies these days are incoherent and happen so fast that the audience never settles into them – never truly gets what is going on. But Soderbergh holds back – you not only see everything happening, in real time, but you hear it as well. Instead of loud, pulsating rock music, you get David Holmes playful score that often cuts out when the fights start, to better accent the groans of the combatants, the sound of punches and kicks being landed. When people fight in Haywire, it hurts. You also have to pay attention in Haywire, because Soderbergh adds so much detail in the background.

Soderbergh did a smart thing in the casting process. Knowing that Carano may not be the world’s best actress – although she holds her own in every scene, even the dialogue heavy ones – he casts great actors in every single other role. From Ewan McGregor as Mallory’s slimy boss and former boyfriend, to Michael Fassbender as a new partner who may or may not be trustworthy to Antonio Banderas as a Spanish government official to Michael Douglas as his American counterpart to Mathieu Kassovitz as a criminal to Michael Angarano as Mallory’s confidant to Bill Paxton as her father, the rest of the cast fills what could have been cookie cutter roles wonderfully, adding depth. Even Channing Tatum, who career has more bad performances than good ones, is quite good here as Aaron. Soderbergh takes his time with these characters – giving them enough space to breath. It is quite an ensemble cast for a movie like this.

Overall Haywire proves to be an early year highlight for 2012. Normally, unless you’re catching up with movies from the previous year, January is the worst month of the year for new releases, as we get movies that the studios simply dump into theatres to try and get a good weekend of opening grosses against soft competition. But Haywire is better than that. In fact, Haywire will most likely end up being one of the best action films of 2012.