Man on Fire Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)April 23rd, 2004
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Violent revenge is the name of the game if you've seen a new theatrical release in the month of April. One week after Kill Bill: Vol. 2 and The Punisher hit screens, Tony Scott's Man On Fire blasts its way into your heart with a couple of things those other films don't have: An A-list protagonist and a running time that comes dangerously close to breaching two and a half hours.
Fire isn't even April's only revenge remake, sharing that delightful honor with Walking Tall (which is over a full hour shorter than Fire), as the A.J. Quinnell novel on which the movie is based was already made into a 1987 film with Scott Glenn. Here, Glenn's role of an ex-mercenary-turned-child bodyguard is played by Out of Time's Denzel Washington, who has apparently decided to only accept offers to star in films that follow the important three-letter word/two-letter word/four-letter word pattern.
Washington's Creasy is a drunk who barely manages to land a job protecting little Lupita (Dakota Fanning, The Cat in the Hat), the only child of a struggling Mexico City business owner (pop sensation Marc Anthony) and his American wife (Radha Mitchell, Phone Booth), from falling victim to the lucrative Mexican kidnapping industry. Initially, Creasy tries to act professional by maintaining his distance from Pita. But she's Dakota Frigging Fanning - that shit's like Kryptonite, man. Soon he's helping her train for swim meets and braiding her hair while they talk about the cute boys in social studies. This goes on for an hour, and frankly, it would be enough to frame most banal Hollywood offerings. Pita wins her big race, Creasy scales back his alcohol intake, and even cracks a smile once or twice. It's a happy ending. Thanks, Li'l Cracker!
Only Fire isn't over. You're only 40% into it at this point, which is when Pita does get kidnapped despite Creasy squeezing bullets into her abductors. When the dust settles, Creasy has killed four, including two on-the-take cops, and is implicated in Pita's snatching (thankfully, Fire doesn't veer into Denzel's typical Accused Black Man Against the Corrupt System territory). After a brief recovery, the mad-as-hell Creasy decides to take the law into his own hands, launching a revenge mission, Buford Pusser/Beatrix Kiddo/Frank Castle-style. His old mercenary pal (Christopher Walken, Gigli) gets to peel off a great line - "Creasy's art is death; he's about to create his masterpiece."
There's a bit more to the story than just revenge. Creasy is a religious chap who knows he needs to right a whole lot of wrongs he's created over the years. Before she's taken, Pita gives him a St. Jude medallion - because even a little kid could recognize Creasy is a lost cause - which gives him something to play with during integral moments between cutting off fingers and administering C4 suppositories to his victims. That should pretty much tell you how Fire is going to end, and if you're in possession of at least one-half of a brain, fingering those responsible for the kidnapping won't be too difficult, either.
The predictability of Fire is one of two big glitches in the film. The other - Fire's editing - is more a matter of individual preference. The movie could have been called Editing Bay On Fire, as it veers into the realm of a Michael Bay offering. If editor Christian Wagner was paid by the jump cut, he'd have made way more than Tom Cruise's going salary. Personally, I thought it was a bit much, but the really intensely cut scenes were usually accompanied by a Nine Inch Nails song to help offset the visual insanity of it all. And there's the little matter of not understanding how the offspring of a Mexican could be so pale, but that's just being picky.
Thankfully, there's a lot to offset the above, and most of it is acting. Washington, who re-teams with Crimson Tide's Scott, clocks in with his strongest performance since The Hurricane. He's not my favorite actor in the world, but when he's not playing a self-righteous character, I like him a lot more. Fanning can still act circles around him, though. Her preternatural acting ability is almost frightening, and Fire takes a big hit when her character disappears with 90 minutes left. Both her and Washington speak passable Spanish, in small doses, with seemingly little effort. Those last three words would also be adequate to describe the paper-thin work of Walken and Mickey Rourke.
2:27 - R for language and strong violence
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