**spoiler alert** While I usually prefer not to compare films (as any film should stand or fall on its own merits) the best description for this movie is a light version of the Bourne films, or Salt.
Carano, whose character is named Mallory Kane, plays a private operative who is hired by the US government to do black-ops. She is contracted to handle a "rescue" operation in Barcelona where Tatum is one of her team members. Her handler and liaison is a man named Kenneth (McGregor) who answers to a US government agent named Coblenz (Douglas). The Barcelona mission is not smooth, but the rescue is pulled off. Kenneth almost immediately sends Mallory onto another mission to Dublin to assist a British MI6 member named Paul (Fassbender) on a "easy" run - all she has to do is accompany him to meet a contact. This, of course, is a double cross and Paul intends to kill her on Kenneth's orders. Mallory sniffs out the plan, kills Paul and escapes Ireland, making her way back to the US. She spends the rest of the movie taking out everyone involved in the double-cross.
Where this movie succeeds is in Carano's action sequences. The hand to hand fights were well staged, her movements on the missions both as a stealth operative, and escapes from various people chasing her throughout any number of scenes were shot well, and came off as believable - which in big budget Hollywood is often hard to do without the scenes becoming almost cartoonish. I would not call Carano's acting great, but her role wasn't meant to be deep or tortured like a Jason Bourne. She was purely an action character controlling her own moves, and it was enjoyable to watch. She is also built to handle action roles (she is 5'8"), and has obviously trained to be able to fight - but the real "Hollywood" bonus is that she is very attractive. I would make a prediction now that if she can really act beyond this action role character type, she could easily be as big a star as Angelina Jolie in the future.
I think the other big names lended the film credibility, but none of them had a role that I would call exciting, intense, or exceptionally well acted. Haywire is pretty formulaic and predictable as far as the double cross spy films go, but it is still a fun little action ride that does not take itself too seriously and is worth watching especially to see Gina Carano. The shots in and around Dublin and Barcelona are very nice, and I think the direction for this film was where it needed to be.
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