Last night, I finally caught up with a 2004 film that several friends have told me I was crazy to have missed, MAN ON FIRE. They all told me that it's one of their favorite films and I can see why, as you really get two films for the price of one.
The first half introduces us to broken "agent" John Creasy, well played by the terrific Denzel Washington. As he did in "Flight", Washington crafts Creasy as a man with all his flaws visible just beneath the surface, tormented by his memories and finding quiet moments in his addictions.
When Creasy connects in Mexico City with his old friend and former associate Paul (Christopher Walken in a terrific, nuanced performance) Creasy is led to a job as a budget bodyguard for an uber-wealthy car magnate Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony), his American wife Lisa (Radha Mitchell) and their daughter Pita (Dakota Fanning).
As we watch Creasy grow closer to Pita, his walls begin to come down and he begins to find some sparks of happiness in his very tortured mind.
Halfway through the film, Pita is kidnapped and the film takes a very dark path, flipping on its head from a character study to a relentless, driven and violent revenge film.
Some critics and audiences balked at the second half, but I think most were probably overwhelmed by the frenetic, in-your-face directorial choices of director Tony Scott (Top Gun, Days of Thunder) who mixes rapid fire cuts with extreme closeups, sound effects and jarring visuals to immerse you in the action.
I was so caught up in Creasy's absolute focus on destroying anyone responsible for Pita's disappearance that the film pulled me along with it at every moment.
It's funny because I really hated the same sort of stylistic choices when director Marc Forster used them in the Bond film "Quantum of Solace". The difference in the OO7 film for me was that the editing rendered almost any sense of story coherence irrelevant since you couldn't even follow a fight or a car chase due to the visual madness. For me, it works here.
Washington is fantastic throughout. As his true abilities emerge, you realize this man is very good at what he does, which begins to inform why he's such a tortured soul.
At nearly two and a half hours long, it never lags. Mexico City has never looked as beautiful and as ugly at the same time.
MAN ON FIRE is one hell of a ride and gets a B.
(Movie Music fans might be surprised like I was to hear a cut from the Jeff Bridges film "Against All Odds" dropped into a scene, until you realize that Michel Colombier wrote the scores for both films. Homage or laziness....you decide.)
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