Category — Lights, camera... action!

The Steven Soderbergh-directed action movie Haywire, starring Gina Carano, doesn’t hit theatres until January 20, but it’s already been called the “best action thriller of 2012” by critic Jeffrey Wells, whose opinion I mostly trust, at least about movies.

Wells attended a sneak preview a couple of nights ago and wrote, “Haywire is the smartest, most genuinely thrilling and involving and satisfying kick-ass, faux-exploitation action thriller I’ve seen in a long time. Carano, bless her, beats her way through the entire male cast, and I believed each and every battle… If the Sean Connery-Robert Shaw train compartment fight in From Russia With Love is your idea of a classic, Haywire will throttle you right down to the marrow. I’ve always felt that Angelina Jolie was too small and skinny to kick large male ass, but I believe in Gina Carano’s aggressive abilities 110%…” He followed up the next day with more thoughts on the movie:

“Why was I, a non-fan of sadistic kick-ass actioners in the Jason Statham-Steven Seagal mode and a rabid hater of most Asian martial-arts flicks, so delighted with Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire and the fight sequences in particular? Answer: because they’re 100% believable, and because Gina Carano, an MMA champ, is the first completely credible female kick-butt star, ever. Thirty seconds into her first duke-out and there isn’t the slightest doubt that Carano can whip any guy out there, no matter how big or snarly. If she could time-travel back to ‘62 she could probably whip Sean Connery. Seriously. And she can act well enough. And she’s attractive.

There’s something almost stunning about the straight-up realism in Haywire’s fight scenes. Or nostalgic, I should say. For as I mentioned last night, and as Soderbergh himself noted during last night’s post-screening q & a, the fight-scene realism is a kind of tribute to the train-compartment battle between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love (‘63).

With their phony, fetishy, high-flying action-ballet bullshit, most Asian martial-arts films (efforts like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon excepted) get it so completely wrong, for whatever reason not understanding or unable to deliver Haywire’s simple aesthetic.

Soderbergh’s shooting and editing of the Haywire fight scenes is exquisite. Haywire is faster and more furious than Drive, but Soderbergh is clearly coming from the same “tone it down, think it through and make it real” school of action cinema. At no time do Haywire’s action scenes give you that awful feeling of being artificially adrenalized and jacked-up for the sake of coherence-defying Michael Bay-o sensation.

Carano’s Mallory Kane is an ex-Marine and independent contractor who’s on the run from several men who have some interest in or relation to an operation in Barcelona involving a Chinese defector or protestor of some kind. Mallory naturally has to elude or otherwise survive all the attacks upon her, or, as Soderbergh put it last night, she “beats her way through the cast.”

The able-bodied fellows who get the piss and the tar whipped out of them include Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor and Antonio Banderas.”

I fear over-praising this movie might result in either too-high expectations or a complete dismissal of my opinion as mere hyperbole. Regardless, Warrior is a muscular testosterone-driven drama that’s as fist-pumpingly satisfying as the original Rocky. I’d go so far as to say that it’s deeper and more heartfelt than Rocky and it deftly avoids the cliches and cartoonishness of the sequels (and of the entire underdog sports genre altogether).

Warrior is emotionally raw and visceral and utterly alive with conflict and pathos and suffering on an all-too-human level. It is also a fight film par excellence and contains the most brutally realistic teeth-loosening, rib-cracking fights ever seen in a Hollywood movie. Not surprisingly, all of the body blows exchanged by the characters, by stars Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, are 100 percent real and you can tell when they land and how hard. The clip above, which is a slightly shortened version of the full fight scene, shows Hardy in action, a hand grenade with a singular purpose – to go off before the other guy. The story – two estranged brothers and their even more estranged alcoholic father, all with a penchant for punching and kicking – grabs you in a plum clinch and doesn’t let go until the closing credits.

Dammit, I just wish the trailer didn’t use the line about the two men in the final of the tournament being brothers – not because it gives away a major plot point because it’s pretty much a given that the two brothers will face each other and besides, it’s how that fight plays out that matters; I hate that line in the trailer because it reinforces the perception that this is a cheesy predictable and unbelievable underdog sports movie when nothing could be further from the truth. This isn’t like any other MMA movie. It’s not Never Back Down, it’s not those horrible Hector Echavarria-produced crapfests. This is a fight movie with an arthouse feel. It has substance and character and emotional depth and it digs into the story in a very real and intimate way. In 1977, Warrior would have won the Academy Award, not Rocky. And I love Rocky.

Here’s what I wrote on Facebook an hour after seeing the film two weeks ago:

“Just saw Warrior and I am pumped. This is the real deal, folks. An MMA movie worth the price of admission. Better than The Fighter. Almost as good as the original Rocky. Maybe as good [Ed. note: having just rewatched Rocky recently for the billionth time I can state with certainty that Warrior is the better film, in terms of story, in terms of fight scenes, in terms of depth and emotion and the way it grabs the audience, but Rocky got there first and that counts for a lot]. It’s not just about fighting (although it delivers the most-realistic MMA fight scenes this side of a real fight).

This isn’t Never Back Down. This isn’t some spiffed-up Channing Tatum vehicle. This isn’t a straight-to-Netflix cheapo cage fighting flick starring Rampage Jackson and BJ Penn and GSP. This is not like any MMA movie you’ve ever seen. In fact, it’s not really an MMA movie at all – don’t worry, there’s plenty of MMA in the movie, and it’s brutal and unHollywood, and it is ostensibly about two brothers competing in a major tournament.

But the story isn’t really about MMA and isn’t about sports, although it’s very much about fighting, the kind of fighting we do with those closest to us, the kind we do within ourselves. It’s about brotherly love, and brotherly hate, and bad parents and old wounds and responsibility and family and a lousy economy. Tom Hardy gives a clenched fist of a performance, a wounded animal that evokes young Brando in On the Waterfront; Joel Edgerton, who looks like the lovechild of Matt Hughes and Conan O’Brien, is real and truthful and subtle and easily holds his own, as his is the tougher, less-flashy role; and Nick Nolte, well I just love Nick (ask me sometime about being in bed with Nick). Sure, there’s some improbabilities, but when aren’t there in sports movies? Thankfully, the cliches are few, the predictability is low, and everything just works. I cannot wait to see it again.”

This trailer for the Gina Carano-starring, Bourne-esque Haywire is all kinds of cute. Cut smile. Cute skirt. Cute hat. Cute Commando makeup. Cute push kick through a plate-glass window. Cute, cute, cute. Or, another way of looking at it, a real action movie with a real budget and a real cast (Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill “Game over, man!” Paxton, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum), and starring MMA’s hottest commodity. Sure, it might look a bit like a bargain bin Cynthia Rothrock vehicle, but with director Steven Soderbergh at the wheel this should be a very fun ride.

Just when I thought Kimbo Slice’s 15 minutes were over, I find out about this. Seriously, a movie about Slice? By the guy behind Entourage? If he follows the same formula as the TV show, makes it a comedy about a completely talentless fighter who somehow still manages to have a big time career while surrounded by his wallet-leaching buddies from the ‘hood, then maybe… Naw, not even then.

How do you end the thing? Where the uplifting “Rocky going the distance with Apollo Creed” moment? When he makes his MMA debut at EliteXC by punching Bo Cantrell into submission? That’s the moment that will get audiences on their feet? Against Bo Cantrell? Or when he beats Houston Alexander in his UFC debut, one of the least memorable UFC fights ever? I’m just not seeing it.

Tonight’s UFC 131 in Vancouver will deliver several reasons for me to tune in. The main event between heavyweight contenders Junior dos Santos and Shane Carwin top the list. Former lightweight contender Kenny Florian’s first bout at 145 (against Diego Nunes) is another. Likewise jiu-jitsu ace Demian Maia vs. heavy-handed wrestler Mark Munoz. I’m also pulling for undercarder Dustin Poirier, especially after seeing his story in the documentary Fightville. He was outstanding in his UFC debut against the heavily-favoured Josh Grispi, a bout he took on four weeks’ notice, dropping from lightweight to featherweight to make it happen. And his personal story, as told in Fightville, is pretty stirring stuff.

And Yves Edwards has also given me another reason to check out the prelims. The thug-jitsu master will square off with Sam Stout. But how did Edwards kill time yesterday while cutting weight? He answered some questions from FightingWords about his upcoming film, Warrior, which looks like a serious and cool MMA movie in the vein of The Fighter and Rocky (as opposed to straight-to-the-bargain-bin Never Back Down 2).

FW: Tell me about your role in Warrior.                                                                                                                                              YE: I play a fighter named Houston Greggs, and he punches people in the face for a living, but other than that he’s a very nice guy. Just like me.

Only slightly more painful than Saturday’s UFC 130, this Funny or Die clip featuring Quinton “Rampage” Jackson reminds me that his acting career will consist primarily or roles that 50 Cent turned down.

The trailer for Hamill, the movie about deaf UFC fighter Matt Hamill, who faces Quinton “Rampage” Jackson at UFC 130, raises all kinds of red flags. It’s produced by Tapout, which makes shiny commercials for ugly T-shirts, and directed by Oren Kaplan, who previously worked on TV series I <3 Vampires and Electric Spoofaloo. At least the actor playing Hamill, Russell Harvard, is actually deaf, although I’ve no idea if he can actually wrestle.

There’s also no sign of any MMA in the trailer (beyond the Rich Franklin cameo as a wrestling coach), indicating that either the story remains in Hallmark Hall of Fame territory with its Rudy-meets-The Miracle Worker underdog-overcoming-adversity story or they’re hiding the fighting from the family folks they perceive as the film’s audience while ignoring any chance of catching on with MMA fans who might actually care about this movie.

I love martial arts movies, from Bloodsport to Best of the Best to just about anything starring Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal (seriously), and of course, the Chinese triad of Bruce Lee, Jet Li and Donnie Yen. But I really hate MMA movies. Too many gravity-defying wushu and capoeira moves, too many lame Rocky storylines, too many bad actors. That goes for Never Back Down 2: Even Back Downier.

The first movie was The OC-meets-UFC, and I pretty much despised it. Now, the straight-to-shlockbuster sequel brings us more teens with after-school-special attitude problems. And they’re even more forgettable than the kids from the first movie, if that’s possible. And I can’t stand director and star Michael Jai White (I couldn’t be happier that his scenes in Kill Bill volume II were left on the cutting room floor).

Of course, it’s got the requisite legit MMA personalities to try to give it some cred: UFC lug Todd Duffee, Chuck Liddell’s grappling coach Scott Epstein and Lyoto Machida, who appears doing a karate kata (how much you want to bet that Machida is only in that one scene?). Oh yeah, and I’m pretty sure that’s Eddie Bravo as the DJ, if that means anything.

I commented on Tim Credeur possessing a funny, insightful all-around-good-guy quality in the interview I posted about him yesterday. Well, last night I had a chance to meet Credeur in person at the Hot Docs premiere of Fightville, the amazing documentary by Mike Tucker that goes inside Credeur’s Louisiana gym, Gladiators Academy. And he was everything he was on the phone and more.

Quite a charmer, that Mr. Credeur, and in the nicest, most-down-to-earth way possible. Just check out the post-screening Q&A for a sense of Credeur’s personality. He’s funny, charming, disarming, and beneath that easy laid back style there’s a grown up edge that says he’s not to be messed with, that fun is fun but sometimes you need to be serious, that he’s lived a little and been through some things and that he works for a living.

If UFC boss Dana White was smart he’d tap into that to help promote the sport. Maybe get Credeur to do some video blogging for the UFC, make some appearances, get out to the media and the public in a less-contained and controlled way than during the promotional requirements prior to a fight.

As for Fightville, it played just as well if not better than the first time I saw it. The story’s just as honest and real and powerfully directed, and it’s just as exciting even if I know how all the fights and ups and downs are going to play out. I’m already looking forward to owning the DVD so I can watch it a few more times. Of course, I’ll be happy to own it after Fightville has a nice theatrical run. It’s playing Hot Docs at least once more, so once the UFC 129 mayhem is over you should definitely check it out.