Rating: Country: U.S.A. Release Date: May 1, 2012 Distributor: Lionsgate Director: · Steven Soderbergh Cast: · Gina Carano · Michael Fassbender · Ewan MacGregor · Channing Tatum · Bill Paxton · Antonio Banderas · Michael Douglas · Michael Angarano Related Sites: · Official Site · IMDb: Haywire Grade: B+

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Mallory Kane is a woman on the run. She's a former marine who is now an "independent contractor" who works on special covert operations for the United States government. She's just recently finished a job in which she's extracted a dissident who's been held captive in Barcelona. She's ready to wind down, when her handler, Kenneth, asks her to perform another mission in Dublin. Kenneth though, has other plans for Mallory and has basically put her in a position in which she's believed to be responsible for the murder of the same dissident who she's retrieved. Now Mallory wants to clear her name and get a little revenge on Kenneth.

That's the premise for "Haywire," the latest movie from director Steven Soderbergh featuring the big-screen debut of Mixed Martial Artist Gina Carano as Mallory. It's also in my opinion one of the best movies that I've seen all year, and rather than go into all of those details now, I'd recommend that you read my theatrical review of the film, first. Don't worry, I'll wait a few minutes...

After watching the new DVD release for "Haywire," I have to say, I enjoyed it even more the second time around and even picked up on a few things in the dialogue that I missed the first time around. Although the movie is just fantastic, I'd wish there'd been a little more that came with the DVD package. As it stands, this just includes two brief, but good, featurettes as well as, of course, the movie itself and a handful of previews of other Lionsgate films. Blu-ray owners aren't faring much better; they get the same things that the DVD has as well as a digital copy of the film and that's it. At the very least, it would've been nice to have had a commentary track or two here. The two I would've liked to have heard would be one with Soderbergh and Carano of course, and another with Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs, as a bit of a follow-up to their unique commentary track to "The Limey." Soderbergh always does great commentary tracks, so it was a bit of a disappointment that at least one wasn't included in this package.

But what is here is pretty good; certainly the movie itself is outstanding. Picture quality is very sharp at a 1:2.35 aspect ratio and the sound is terrific in 5.1 Dolby Digital.

As I said, this includes two featurettes. The first is a 15-minute piece that is solely devoted to Gina Carano and how she transitioned from the world of MMA to movies and the type of training that she went through to be believable as Mallory Kane. This is pretty good and features some great scenes showing the type of training that she went through for each of her fights with Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum and Ewan MacGregor. The second featurette is a a 5-minute piece about the men of "Haywire." This includes short little interview bits with Michael Fassbender, Ewan MacGregor, Channing Tatum and Antonio Banderas. It's OK, but it's just your basic sort of Electronic Press Kit of sound bites. It could've been a little better if it had gone far enough to include both Bill Paxton and Michael Douglas as well.

While I may not be that enthusiastic about the package, considering that the only difference between this and the Blu-ray version is presentation quality and the addition of a digital copy, it's still not bad and at least between the two, there's not really any great holdout from one format over the other. Even though I'm giving the DVD package a "B+," make no mistake, the movie itself is pure grade "A," and is certainly well worth seeing and owning.