Release Date: April 21, 2004 (NY, LA; wide release: April 23)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Tony Scott
Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland
Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken,
Giancarlo Giannini, Radha Mitchell, Marc Anthony, Rachel Ticotin, Mickey Rourke
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R (for language and strong violence)
Official Website: ManonFiremovie.com
Plot Summary: Oscar winner Denzel Washington stars as a government
operative / soldier of fortune, who has pretty much given up on life. In Mexico
City, he reluctantly agrees to take a job to protect a child (Fanning) whose
parents are threatened by a wave of kidnappings. He eventually becomes close to
the child and their relationship reawakens and rekindles his spirit. When she is
abducted, his fiery rage is unleashed on those he feels responsible, and he
stops at nothing to save her.
Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2004
- Take a pot shot but be warned.
Director Tony Scott impresses again with his sense of style
with Man on Fire, a film that works moderately well, strengthened by
Denzel Washington’s raw expression in the central character as an emotionally
detached, distant and raw ex-CIA operative.
Scott who is impressive with visual and editing technique
having directed Top Gun, Days of Thunder, and Crimson Tide
uses similar technical skill as he did in 2001’s Spy Game - montage
editing for effect. The first 15 minutes hooks you in because of this (but later
the innovative use of subtitles is showy and pretentious).
When Creasy (Washington) builds a relationship with the girl
he is entrusted to protect (Dakota Fanning) it is like the movie is going
nowhere slowly. It is intended to add dimensions to Creasy’s character and
make his actions later in the film seem justifiable.
But when later we see Creasy’s retributive justice it is
predictable that he won’t be getting away with it. These scenes, however,
reveal another layer to the troubled side of Washington’s character – he
reacts when, after years, someone who loves him (the girl) is kidnapped
therefore he has lost that love (which is what he really needs to survive) -
which is sympathetically conveyed by the actor, the psychological roots
presented deftly.
Like in Training Day Washington is ruthless as the
perpetrator of violence and in need of redemption but he’s got more scope in Man
on Fire as if Creasy is the victim and he acts out of sheer heartbreak (he
flicks through Bible passages in the opening scenes looking for perhaps,
subconsciously, forgiveness believing that God couldn’t forgive him for what
he has done as a CIA assassin). Yet the conclusion defies Creasy’s predictably
easy onslaught without consequences.
The setting, Mexico City, is portrayed unglamorously the
makers are in effect making a (angry?) statement about the social conditions of
the city. Creasy is the American interventionalist where even black Americans
when in someone else’s country act violently to sort out other’s problems
adding to the film mythology of America as a violent nation in other people’s
neighbourhoods. Creasy is an ambiguous representative all the same, the film’s
mood about the Mexican-American relationship downbeat.
Graphically violent in scenes and in spite of some good
performances from Christopher Walken, Australian-born Radha Mitchell, and the
young Dakota Fanning it has a tone of contrivance and doesn’t fully grip and
involve the viewer, the style substituting for a convincing drama.
