One of my favorite moments from Legally Blonde occurs when Victor Garber says of Elle Woods, "Do you think she just woke up one morning and said, 'I think I'll go to law school.'" I've often wondered if this is how Steven Soderbergh approaches his movies, as he jumps from one genre to another with no discernible pattern. He's gone beyond being diverse and become a filmmaker who appears to have a genre checklist which he's burning through, often at the rate of two movies a years. Well, he apparently reached "spy movie" on his list and we are left with Haywire.

Haywire tells the story of Mallory Kane (Gina Carano), a special operative who works in the private sector. Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) arranges for her to work a job in Barcelona where the goal is to rescue a scientist. Working with a team which includes Aaron (Channing Tatum), the operation goes off as planned. Mallory then goes to Dublin to work a job with Paul (Michael Fassbender), but things quickly go awry and she realizes that Kenneth has set her up. She makes her way back to the United States, and with the help of her father, John (Bill Paxton), she devises a plan to get her revenge.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is an incredible bore. Veteran screenwriter Lem Dobbs (The Hard Way, The Limey) hasn't done the movie any favors by creating an incredibly lackluster script. The dialogue scenes are mind-numbingly boring and I still can't believe that Soderbergh chose to follow the opening fight scene with one in which Kenneth negotiates Mallory's salary (?!). Nothing says excitement like a business meeting. The plot is never interesting and Soderbergh treats the twist at the end as if the movie were something like The Sixth Sense, as he goes back to explain how everything happened. If we can't follow a simply double-cross, then we shouldn't be watching the movie. The dialogue is so overly technical that it sound silly at times. The script's biggest problem is the lack of character development. From the outset, Haywire wants us to care about Mallory, but I never felt that we got to know her at all.

Haywire makes getting to New Mexico seem really easy on DVD courtesy of Lionsgate. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the transfer has been enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs. The image is sharp and clear, showing little grain and no defects from the source material. Soderbergh’s movies are usually grainy, but he actually avoids that look here, although the movie does transition to black and white at times. The colors look good and the image is never overly bright -- but the dark scene is really dark. The image is never notably soft and I didn’t see any overt artifacting. The DVD carries a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track which provides clear dialogue and sound effects. As one would expect, the track really comes to life during the action scenes and we are treated to some nice stereo and surround effects. During the fight scenes, the punches are accentuated by the subwoofer.

The Haywire DVD contains only two extras. "Gina Carano in Training" (16 minutes) contains an interview with Carano and contains footage from her MMA fights. We also get some footage from a screening in which Soderbergh describes the very simplistic origin of the movie. The piece then turns to Carano's weapons and fighting training, and we see a wealth of rehearsal and training footage. Things then move to the set to show how the training was utilized...where we see Michael Fassbender being beaten to a pulp. "The Men of Haywire" (5 minutes) features comments from Fassbender, McGregor, Tatum, and Antonio Banderas, who talk about their experiences on the film.