Man on Fire

Review #197, Movie #267
Man On Fire

Year Of Release
2004

Director
Tony Scott

Producer
Lucas Foster, Arnon Milchan, Tony Scott

Writer
Brian Helgeland, AJ Quinnell

Notes
In 1983, Tony Scott pressed to make the film himself, which means Man On Fire would have been one of his earliest... but he was rejected as he was deemed too inexperienced.
The film was then made in 1987 with Arnon Milchan as producer and Elie Chouraqui as director... Milchan then approached Tony years later, which culminated in this 2004 effort.

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John Creasy is a former US Marine, now working as a Bodyguard for the rich and famous. In Mexico City, kidnappings have become a pandemic and rich businessman Samuel Ramos hires Creasy to protect his 9 year old daughter, Pita.
Basically Creasy just has to babysit, drive Pita to school and just be around at all times to make sure she's safe.

Creasy finds it a little difficult at first when the highly intelligent Pita questions him and his reserve but eventually they find a common ground and a kinship.

But when Creasy and Pita are overwhelmed by armed men, and despite a heroic attempt by Creasy top stop these men, Pita is kidnapped and Creasy is left hospitalised and is under investigation into the kidnapping.

But more horror is around the corner and Creasy's hand is forced... and he makes the judgement that everyone involved with Pita's disappearance will pay for what they have done.

Bit of a tough one to review.
Man On Fire pushes a lot of buttons in the right way... but look under the skin only slightly and it feels extremely pretentious.

It lays on thick the message of friendship and revenge for wrongs... and at times it gets a little tiring.
It feels as though the filmmakers are pushing just too much with the "that was my friend and you will pay" mentality. We get the point, we didn't need reminded every 30 seconds.

The other thing is some of the implausible things that the main character does, there's very little exposition into how he gets around to doing and knowing certain things. Some of the things he discovers are shown, others aren't.

What works though, is the shooting style and photography and the character writing.
The character writing in particular is extremely good. Creasy's change along the running time and Pita's relationship with him is very well developed as the film goes on.
The other thing is how Creasy's scenes of information finding is handled. Basically he uses torture to get information so he can get to whoever was involved in Pita's kidnapping.
It's all very cold and calculated and doesn't ever go all Hollywood OTT.

The first act of the film based around Creasy and Pita though is laced very gently with humour too. Their relationship is worked on and given a real depth at times.

Which brings me to the acting.
We're treated to bit parts in the forms of Marc Anthony and Radha Mitchell as Pita's parents. Both are kept to the background to allow the story to develop around Creasy but when on screen, both make an impact. Anthony in particular is good.

Rachel Ticotin and Giancarlo Giannini also make a show as another double act. They're reporters/informants for Creasy. Ticotin in particular makes the best show of these two and looks hot too I might add.

Dakota Fanning as Pita isn't seen a great deal after the initial kidnapping, but she makes an impression that lasts throughout the film. Her chemistry with Washington is also top drawer.

Now Denzel Washington... cool, calm and calculated and all that comes second only to the rage you can see is building within the character that he's somehow able to bury deep down to get the job done.
Washington absolutely rocks this role.
His onscreen chemistry with everyone he comes into contact with, especially Fanning, is brilliantly pieced together too.

Back up comes from Christopher Walken.

There's little "action" as such, just hints and hits of more exciting cinema and the occasional gunfight and some torture scenes. They work well though and the choreography, backed up by the character connections makes the film more exciting and you can't help get behind Creasy and his gruesome techniques.

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All in all, it won't make ranks of Classic any time soon, but it's still a satisfying revenge thriller with some nice hits of action every now and then.
Brilliantly acted though from everyone involved, especially Washington and the story and screenplay work too.
Just a shame about the borderline mawkish "message of friendship" that is plastered extremely thick all over the character writing.

My rating: 84%