The Unseen Movie Review

Man On Fire

British Director Tony Scott has, for much of his career, been heavily overshadowed by his more successful big brother Ridley – he of Gladiator, Thelma and Louise, Alien and Blade Runner fame. To be fair, Tony’s had his successes as well, including the 80s camp actioner Top Gun and the semi-sequel to the Francis Ford Coppola’s classic The Conversation that was 1998’s Enemy of the State, but nothing like the cross-genre critical and commercial hits of his sibling. Unfortunately, Man on Fire still hasn’t brought Tony up to Ridley’s level.

A re-make of the pretty much unknown 1987 film of the same name, Man on Fire centres around former CIA agent John Creasy (Denzel Washington), hired by a wealthy couple in Mexico City who fear their daughter has become the target of a kidnapping plot. Sure enough, she’s soon nabbed by the baddies, and Creasy sets off on a violently unthinking revenge trip, so enamoured has he become with the cute little kiddie.

It’s all rather predictable, and hardly helped by the fact that Washington, rather than give the kind of performance we all know he is more than capable of, seems to have decided to go for full-on tortured action hero mode, with all the resultant clunky lack of subtlety this normally entails. There is little characterisation here, despite there being plenty of room for not only Washington but also many of the supporting cast to add a bit of depth and subtlety to their stock responses.

To be fair, Scott tries his best to inject something interesting into what is effectively a “kill ‘em all” revenge tale, playing around with numerous fancy editing techniques, filters, montage sequences and jump cuts, but it ends up looking more like he’s trying to imitate his brother’s style from Black Hawk Down, and comes up short in the comparison.

What also doesn’t help the movie is that we’ve already had a revenge tale flick this year, the infinitely superior and far more inventive Kill Bill Volume 2. Whereas Tarantino’s visual and narrative quirks generally worked to enhance the tension, characterisation and plot of his film, Scott’s largely appear gimmicky and pointless.

What also really doesn’t help is the film’s two and a half hour running time. This is scarcely necessary when a film has a particularly complex plot, or a difficult message; Man on Fire has neither of these. Nor does it make up for this with especially interesting or innovative action sequences; instead Washington seems to spend much of his time simply coming up with new ways to dispatch villains in as unpleasant a way as possible.

It all makes for a rather dull, buttock-cramping experience. Washington should really have known better. Had he done, and had this film been deprived of a big-name lead, it is likely it would have faded into the same kind of obscurity its 1987 predecessor has mercifully done. As it is, this will primarily be remembered as an unfortunate blemish on the otherwise nearly spotless record of Denzel Washington, and another try-hard failure from Tony Scott – who, it appears, has a long way to go before he can step out from his more talented brother’s shadow.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM