Haywire (Steven Soderbergh, 2011)

This is explicitly and without greater pretensions a vehicle for real-life MMA fighter Gina Carano, and as such the only point of interest in a purely perfunctory plot involving a secret service contractor who is backstabbed by her employers and sets out for revenge is the fight sequences. These are exhilarating, at least at first, with the knowledge that the star can do and is doing everything shown. Then the force of repetition leaches out the novelty and what is left is the actor's limited range in scenes between pummelings, where she comes across as an even harder nut than while kicking the shit out of various large men. A work of pure fetishism from Soderbergh, then.

4/10