Chameleon Steven Soderbergh turns himself into an action director while MMA fighter Gina Carano becomes an ass-kicking spy. When the relatively inexpensive (a reported $25 million budget) film was released, it received a lukewarm reception from critics who applauded Soderbergh’s cool, clean action direction, but found it lacking charisma and depth. Audiences were even harsher, with a D+ Cinemascore and less than $20 million in domestic box office.

But these hesitations suggest viewers were searching for a different kind of movie. There is no message to find in this midst of the film’s convoluted plot double-crossed spies, nor a desire to lure an audience with a charismatic character anchoring it. Instead, this lo-fi response to the American action film is Soderbergh’s exercise in matching his stripped-down filmmaking approach with the tremendous physical talents of Carano. The director even goes as far as removing David Holmes’ score during the hand-to-hand combat. With the fight scenes set in the confines of a normal-size hotel room, a diner, a snowy backroad and an empty beach, it’s not about scale but skill (both filmmaking and fighting). The result is a pulpy, brutal, palette-cleansing piece of genre filmmaking of the highest order.