MAN ON FIRE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Academy Award winner Denzel Washington (TRAINING DAY and GLORY) is terrific as
Creasy, a first-time bodyguard in Mexico City who loses his young charge, Pita
(Dakota Fanning, THE CAT IN THE HAT), to kidnappers. The same compliment can't
be said of the movie, MAN ON FIRE, by director Tony Scott (ENEMY OF THE STATE),
which is needlessly riddled with self-inflicted wounds. Given the storyline,
the movie could easily have been called THE PUNISHER, since the last half of
the movie is one long violent revenge sequence as Creasy attempts to torture
and kill every one of Pita's kidnappers. Chopping off fingers one by one is
just one of his techniques to elicit information before murdering the
kidnappers.
A bloated thriller that runs two-and-one-half hours, it starts with a full hour
of touchy-feely pabulum about Pita learning how to win a swim meet and Creasy
learning how to be a human being again. He has spent fifteen years working for
the U.S. government as a "counter-insurgent assassin" before trading in his
career for a life as a full-time alcoholic. Nothing happens during this hour
long setup to the rest of the story. Once the action starts in the second
hour, Scott shows that his priorities are style first and story second. Most
of the movie was constructed in post-production when the film stock was
subjected to hyper-editing, overexposing, speeding up, slowing down and
everything imaginable to add pseudo-energy and to try to be the next TRAFFIC.
In this story of corrupt Mexican cops and bloodthirsty kidnappers, the best
part, other than the wonderful performances by Washington, Fanning and the ever
reliable Christopher Walken, are some unintentionally hilarious, over-the-top
lines, including: "Do you ever see the hand of God in what you do?" "Revenge is
a meal best served cold," "Creasy's art is death. He's about to paint his
masterpiece," "Forgiveness is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the
meeting," and "Think God'll forgive us for what we've done?" With all of the
references to the All-Mighty, maybe the filmmakers want us to think of MAN ON
FIRE as some sort of religious allegory.
After the movie's ridiculous ending, the movie has the audacity to thank Mexico
City and call it a "very special place." Since the film opens with statistics
claiming that there is one kidnapping every sixty seconds in Latin America and
since the movie makes Mexico City look just slightly less scary than Hell
itself, I suspect that any potential tourists to Mexico may be inclined to
cancel their reservations in fear after watching MAN ON FIRE.
MAN ON FIRE runs needlessly long at 2:26. It is rated R for "language and
strong violence" and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 23, 2004. In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC and the Century theaters.
Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
Want free reviews and weekly movie and video recommendations via Email?
Just send me a letter with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
==========
X-RAMR-ID: 37625
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1274179
X-RT-TitleID: 1131820
X-RT-SourceID: 703
X-RT-AuthorID: 1271
X-RT-RatingText: 2.5/4
NOTE: This review was posted on the usenet
to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup.
Mooviees.com accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review.
Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Movie Database
In Theaters
