Review of Man on Fire (1987) by Alex G — 17 Jan 2013

Man on Fire - Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning shine in poorly directed and overly long run-of-the-mil action thriller.

In 1987, Quinnell's book was adapted for the silver screen by Elie Chouraqui, a minor director, responsible of "Paroles et Musique" (1984) and "les Marmottes" (1993). This version was not a masterpiece and is now virtually in limbo. Unfortunately, it's not this overlong remake by Tony Scott which will set the record straight.

The biggest problem is the just shy of two & a half hour running time, to be honest it's a fairly simple story & somehow the makers have stretched to breaking point. If you examine the film not that much happens, man meets girl, girl is all cute & stops him from committing suicide & binge drinking, girl gets kidnapped, man loses it & wants revenge, there are one or two minor twists about double crosses but basically that's it & it takes up to the fiftieth minute before Pita is kidnapped. Now while the build-up is alright & obviously a lot of time is spent on the ever growing relationship between Creasey & Pita it does get a little tiring & at times they seem like an old married couple with the young Pita coming across like a seasoned psychologist at times, to me the friendship was getting a little weird at times. Man on Fire is slow, very slow. I also hated the ending that dilutes everything that has gone before, all the emotion & blood spilt is sort of tainted with the revelation & in an otherwise gritty & uncompromising film seems like an attempt at some sort of happy ending. It felt wrong.

I hated the way man on Fire was shot, the quick editing, the bleached mess out with colors, the shaky hand held look, the twitchy camera & generally the style of Man on Fire is everything that I hate about modern action films all rolled into one. This is an eyesore as far as I am concerned & it becomes frustrating to watch. Although not that graphic there's a fair bit of violence including shoot-outs & a couple of torture scenes. There's a couple of exploding cars, a crashed car & an exploding nightclub but little in the way of spectacular set-pieces as it goes for a more low key gritty more realistic if you will feel.

Washington carries the movie with his quality of stoic righteousness, making us understand his character on an emotional level even if what he is doing eludes us intellectually. It is Washington and the delightful Ms. Fanning who steal the show. Washington and the wonderful Dakota Fanning establish an natural, easygoing rapport that helps to set the stage for the chaos and turmoil to follow. Even better are the quiet, intimate moments between Washington and Fanning in the early parts of the movie. Fanning had the potential to be an annoyingly cute kid but she is better than that and she has a nice chemistry with Washington that makes us feel for her character rather than pray for her kidnapping (which I have done with other child performances). Support is not as good, mainly because they have as little to work with as the lead two but less time to make a mark.

Overall this is a very average film that tries as hard as it can to hide this fact for as long as it can. Visually it is an eyesore with lack of heart or substance rather detracts from Scott's work â" making it come across as noise without content. The cast also try hard and a couple manage to do well even if they have little but the basics to work with. Sadly the running time exposes how empty the film is and soon even the intense visual style of the film became a bit tiresome. Not an awful film by any means but simply an average affair that tries to cover it by overdoing it in other areas where really it would have been better to concentrate on improving the weak areas instead of trying to cover them. The other directions that the scenario could have taken to enable the film to take a subtle, rich dimension have been shelved or lightly touched. For instance, the major problem of these abductions of children in Latin America falls in the second category. Instead, Helgeland created a linear, stubborn revenge story which Scott filmed with a festival of shock images and by this ruined the reduced potential of the story.

Review Number: 19.