6. Haywire
When I first heard that Steven Soderbergh was doing a rogue agent movie, I had high expectations. Once I heard the cast, I could hardly wait. Gina Carano, Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Fassbender? Yeah, I was sold right there.
Carano is a MMA superstar and naturally, she did her own stunts, which involved thorough ass-kickings that she handed to Fassbender and McGregor. Really, the only remotely fair fight was against Tatum, and he still came out looking much worse for the wear.
The scene where Carano and Douglas are silhouetted in the hangar, as the camera rotates around them, is a cinematic masterpiece in the vein of what we’ve come to always expect from a Soderbergh film.
The phenomenal ending fight scene on the beach, and the ruthlessness Kane shows throughout, is everything you can hope for from this genre.Â
5. Spy Game
With Brad Pitt and Robert Redford you really can’t go wrong. Combine them with director Tony Scott and a masterpiece is inevitable.
Spy Game is one of the finest examples of a rogue agent movie even though it deviates slightly from the face-paced action that so many of these films rely on.
The majority of the film actually avoids the supposed rogue agent, Tom Bishop. We are left to see the entire situation through his friend’s eyes, the only one who thinks that Agent Bishop hasn’t gone rogue, and that is only a gut feeling. He has no proof other than his instinct and his memory.
But it is that instinct that allows Redford to show his wisdom while navigating the labyrinth of memories he is faced with. His wisdom is shown best by my favorite quote from the film: “When did Noah build the ark, Gladys? Before the rain.”Â
A smart and exciting film, Spy Game is vastly underrated in my opinion and if you’re a fan of the genre, you need to give this film a watch.
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