Review: Man on Fire (2004)

Burnt-out, alcoholic ex-Special Ops guy Frank Creasy (Denzel Washington) gets thrown a bone by his old buddy Rayburn (Christopher Walken). The assignment is to act as a driver/bodyguard for 9 year-old Pita (the very un-Pita Dakota Fanning). You see, this is Mexico where criminal organisations kidnap rich kids, who more often than not end up dead. Daughter of a local businessman (Marc Anthony) and his American wife (Radha Mitchell), Pita is cute as a button, talkative, inquisitive and everything Creasy didn’t want in a client. He just wants to do his job with the least amount of interaction possible. Naturally, the kid starts to get under Creasy’s skin and eventually a bond is formed. When the inevitable happens, it enrages Creasy and that’s when he sets about utilising his special set of skills and some scumbags are about to get messed up. Mickey Rourke plays Anthony’s attorney, Rachel Ticotin plays a passionate local journalist, Giancarlo Giannini is the cop she’s banging.

 

No one’s gonna accuse the 1987 original kidnap/vigilante film of being anywhere near a good movie, but I truly loathe this 2004 remake by over-director Tony Scott (“The Hunger”, “Top Gun”, and three good films: “Enemy of the State”, “Unstoppable” and “Déjà vu”- his best film). Scott wanted to make the film in the early 80s but couldn’t get anyone to support him as director. Perhaps he should’ve thought about why that was? Thinking he’s an Anglo version of Wong Kar-Wai (whose films I was tortured with in Asian Cinema class at Uni), Scott tricks the film up to buggery from the first moment to the last, as the opening scene is agonisingly spastic, even by Scott’s usually hyper-stylised standards. 5 minutes of it is painful, the film runs for almost 2 ½ hours.

 

Every single thing about this film aside from the majority of the performances is completely overdone to an irritating degree. Bordering on unbearable, actually. Speaking of unbearable, this is seriously slow-moving stuff. As I said, it’s nearly 2 ½ hours long. A vigilante/revenge flick should not be epic length under any circumstances, but this is a film that is trying to be something IMPORTANT, so everything is horribly drawn out and slow as hell. That ruins the excitement/thrills, all of which (if you can call anything in this exciting or thrilling) really only happen in the second half.

 

So what’s in that first half? Overly-calculated, shamefully and inexcusably wrong-headed justification in the form of Denzel Washington learning to care again through the cuteness of a precocious little girl who is clearly set to get kidnapped and turn him into a Catholic-backed avenger. Dakota Fanning is really good, but it’s sickening how they use her in this film, because when we get to the vengeful second half, Scott (whose “Revenge” was an even worse action-thriller of sheer ricockulousness) has thrown that all out of whack too. It becomes very hard to stomach, morally. Denzel doesn’t just seek revenge, he gets sadistically Medieval on their arses, all with the backing of Radha Mitchell’s grieving mother character (Mitchell, by the way, randomly gives her character a Southern accent after 72 minutes. The hell?). And remember, this is a Catholic family, Marc Anthony has practically a whole fucking Cathedral in his house, so it’s like Scott is saying that Creasy basically has the Pope’s blessing in doing this. In reality, though, the guy would be considered a sadistic psychopath, not a redemptive hero. ***** SPOILER ALERT ***** Oh sure, the climax tries to let itself off the hook by going all downbeat on us in having Creasy die at the end, but we know he’s going to Heaven still (Even if Creasy himself seems to have doubts about that). He saved a little girl and can speak religiously in Spanish! It’s total self-sacrificing hero bullshit for a total blood-thirsty psycho. He likes cute kids? So what? He seems to like torturing people, too ***** END SPOILER *****

 

Screenwriter Brian Helgeland (such worthy projects as “L.A. Confidential”, “Mystic River”, and “Green Zone”) and original novelist A.J. Quinnell deserve their large share of the blame in this frankly disgusting, manipulative, and dishonest piece of crap that wastes the committed services of some genuinely talented actors in a film completely unworthy of them. For starters, it’s a textbook example of the kind of vigilante film I despise. The film’s exploration of the kidnapping epidemic in this part of the world is admittedly its one interesting idea, but that’s not really what the film is about, so that stuff actually feels rather arbitrary. The Rachel Ticotin character of the journalist covering these kidnappings really could’ve been the lead of a far more interesting film. That’s not what this film is, though. What it really is, is a vigilante film and it takes the idea of vigilantism and violent revenge far too seriously for its own good. I just don’t buy vigilantism as being realistic, and the less ‘real world’ you can make it, the better. Yes, I said the one thing I liked about the film was the serious topic it deals with, but it wants to deal with that subject in absolutely the wrong medium for it. This film wants to take a very serious, weighty issue and attach it to the junky vigilante movie deal, and it’s just not a good mix for me. Casting the very serious Denzel Washington as our depressed, alcoholic and vengeful ‘hero’, and singer Marc Anthony playing the most devoutly Catholic person in the history of Catholicism (hell, even Denzel quotes scripture in Spanish) really do go too far in trying to make this film seem a whole lot more weighty, moral, and profound than the simple amoral exploitation junk that it really is. Add to that a running time way too long at almost 2 ½ hours and the putrid use of a cute little girl as the motive for almighty violent vengeance and you’ve got a recipe that I find completely inedible. You may love it, I know plenty of people are into this sort of thing, I’m just not one of you. Remove the seriousness, I could probably enjoy Scott’s fetishised  vigilantism to an extent (Let’s face it, most 80s action flicks- several of them great- are revenge/rescue mission flicks of some sort, but cheesy enough to enjoy the action). Remove the vigilante aspect altogether instead and focus on the kidnapping epidemic, I could probably find it really interesting. This unholy combination, however, is really offensive. Just look at the scene where Denzel sticks a bomb up a guy’s arse. That’d be fine in a silly film, as it’s a really dumb thing, but this isn’t trying to be silly, so it’s actually quite disgusting. It’s also frequently quite dull, despite being a headache-inducingly loud, obnoxious film.

 

Denzel does the job that he has been asked to here, he’s been asked to act glum and that he is. Scott Glenn wasn’t great in the original, either, but there’s not much Denzel can do when given such a limiting directive. His presence is what’s really important here and Scott uses him, as with Fanning, in a deplorable manner to rationalise this crap. I’ve heard that Christopher Walken has a distaste for guns, so it’s interesting that he frequently appears in such violent films. At any rate, he’s perfectly fine. Mickey Rourke, continuing his career resurgence begun with “The Rainmaker” is even better, actually as a sleazy lawyer. Rachel Ticotin, meanwhile, is one of the most underrated actresses to never really get a good role. That’s the case here, she’s good but thankless in assignment. Speaking of thankless, Giancarlo Giannini is perfectly fine, but his character is a fairly extraneous annoyance who eats up too much screen time in a film with way too much screen time.

 

There’s not a damn thing wrong with the performances, it’s not even what the film actually is, it’s how it is. Scott takes the grim, serious route, and takes it all way too far not only in the emotionally manipulative opening hour or so, but also the completely overdone, disgusting second half. It’s also been horribly over-directed with all the camera trickfuckery at Scott’s disposal. Because Scott is serious about all of this shit, this is no fun at all, and really not my thing. You might love it. Good for you. I think it’s shameful.

 

Rating: D+