Man On Fire
Originally written for The Milpitas Post
Directed by: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Marc Anthony, Radha Mitchell, Christopher Walken
Rated: R for language and strong violence.
Parental notes: This film is full of very strong, on-screen violence. The first half of the film is thoughtful and very well done but the second half includes dismemberment, torture, and plenty of gore. Older teens may like it if they can get past the poor storytelling.
“Man on Fire” is one of those films that highlights the divide between the movie reviewer, who sees upwards of 50 films a year, and the average moviegoer, who sees maybe a dozen films a year. The audience at the screening I attended was clearly impressed, and eavesdropping on conversations after the film gave me the impression that these folks liked it.
I, however, had mixed feelings and most of my fellow reviewers across the country seem to be in the same boat. After careful consideration, I suspect that part of the difference between those moviegoers’ opinions of the film and so many reviewers’ opinions is due to the fact that “Man on Fire” does its best to manipulate viewers’ emotions but does so without delivering the payoff to justify its melodrama.
Moviegoers who just want to see Denzel Washington kick butt and take names will, after sitting through the rather actionless first half of the film, find what they want. Moviegoers who are looking for a compelling performances will find them, in spite of the flaws in the script.
But those who, like many reviewers, have seen enough melodramas to be fairly bored with them will find “Man on Fire” to be mostly the same old shtick. It’s overly sentimental and at the same time unpleasantly violent. This is not an action film with cartoonish violence, this is a revenge picture with visceral sequences of torture and death.
The film is effectively divided into two halves. In the first half, drunk and washed up CIA assassin Creasey (Washington) becomes bodyguard to sweet 9-year-old Pita (Dakota Fanning). He is supposed to protect her from kidnapping, which is rampant in her hometown of Mexico City, and as he does so he finds himself opening up to her. Fanning delivers a surprisingly good performance, creating a thoughtful and funny little girl rather than an annoying brat.
The second half is triggered by Creasey’s failure to prevent Pita’s kidnapping. He is enraged and promises Pita’s American mother (Radha Mitchell) and Mexican father (Marc Antony) that he will kill anyone and everyone connected to or profiting from the crime. With a little help, he finds them all and takes them out.
The main thing that kept me from enjoying “Man on Fire” is that it’s too inconsistent. This film is too grim to be an effective fun action movie and too shallow to be a character study. Worse, it’s not funny enough to work as a comedy, but without enough catharsis to work as a tragedy. It’s as though the film was written to be a thoughtful, tragic character study and then rewritten by Hollywood so it wouldn’t be so dark. I can appreciate a film that commits to a goal and strives to reach it, but “Man on Fire” is all over the map.
If the setup for the revenge spree had been shorter, it might have worked. A short setup was certainly effective in “Payback,” a humorous, effective, grittily violent and thoroughly enjoyable revenge movie. But “Man on Fire” lulls us into thinking it’s going to be about Creasey’s redemption, makes us like him, and then shows him doing truly despicable things to people presented as real human beings. He ignores their bravado and desperate pleading and shoots them, tortures them, and in one memorable scene, blows one of them apart with C-4.
This would all be far more exciting and enjoyable if the victims of Creasey’s righteous wrath were less humanized or if it weren’t made so very clear in the film’s first half that Creasey doesn’t want to do this anymore. We learn very early on that he feels incredible guilt for the horrible deeds of his past and wants to put it all behind him. Unfortunately, the scriptwriters won’t let that happen.
“Man on Fire” is the kind of film that rockets to the top of the standings at the box office and makes reviewers throw up their hands. It’s remorselessly violent and doesn’t gel particularly well, but it does contain some fantastic special effects and some good acting. Reviewers may not like it, but many moviegoers will.