Steven Soderbergh's latest film stars (and was made for) MMA fighter Gina Carano, here playing a betrayed black-ops hotshot who’s out for payback. While Carano’s muscular presence lifts the surging, brutal fight sequences to near-Bourne levels, the strain starts to show when she tackles dialogue, resulting in soft emotional impact.
Still, Soderbergh plays it smart, surrounding her with classy, unshowy talent – Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor – and spends most of this stylistically spare movie just watching and admiring her dextrous, deadly moves.
