MAN ON FIRE-
Saw a preview of this about three weeks ago. I'm a huge fan of crime drama / noir but this one just didn't grab me. Denzel is exceptional, as is the little girl (whose role is challenging and pivotal). The cinematography is gorgeous too; they really capture the simultaneous squalor and beauty of Mexico. The problem is that the purportedly controversially violent story is actually sadly friggingly by-the-numbers and tame.
SOME SPOILAGE BELOW
Possibly the worst thing a movie trying to be mysterious and suspenseful can do is to show it's cards so early.
I guessed one of the big "twists" of the kidnapping (the husband's involvement) at about minute two. Denzel's slow but steady falling in love with his girl protectee is better-handled but also as inevitable as the sands from the first time he tries to be distant. The eventual hunting down of the other kidnapper is equally anticlimactic and unsatisfying for just the opposite reason; we have never seen him before and have no chance of figuring his identity out, so who cares who he is?
Strangely, the middle of the movie (Denzel's failure to protect the girl and his single-minded bloodbath search for her killers) is the best section. Typically the middle is where a mediocre movie falls apart, but here Denzel is most moving and interesting to us, revealing the monster that is required to do what is necessary to avenge an angel. This is Denzel's most anti-heroic performance to date (he does things that would shock even his character in TRAINING DAY), and he plays it well.
Probably the biggest disappointment is the total misuse of Christopher Walken. Initially positioned to be the fulcrum of the entire story, Walken ultimately disappears for over an hour and then only reappears long enough to remind us what a waste it is that he is even in this picture, then he is gone again for the duration. I suspect this may be a result of a change in plotting midstream, as the setup is clearly jettisoned.
If you see the movie, watch the way the drunken and inappropriate Denzel is hired by Walken (and the husband). Clearly, the original story leaves it wide open as to whether Walken (Denzel's best friend) is part of the kidnapping. Given Denzel's promise to avenge the daughter and kill everyone involved, this could have (should have) been the highlight of the movie and I would bet dollars to donuts it was in the original script. (Will Denzel take it all the way and kill his best friend?) However, Tony Scott as usual tickles us with a feather then backs way off rather than really tackle what matters, instead focusing on faceless, cliched Mexican mafiosos.
Walken is always great but of late has been relegated to increasingly diminished supporting roles. He was terrific in a brief but brilliant CATCH ME IF YOU CAN appearance. In THE RUNDOWN he was all snarl and menace but again, a totally underwritten part. MAN ON FIRE cuts him back even further; he probably gets less than ten minutes in a 2.5 hour movie. There is a wonderful scene with Walken and his girl and Denzel, reminiscing about the past. In about sixty seconds Denzel and Walken create a believable bond (think of Shaw, Dreyfus and Scheider drinking and bonding below deck in JAWS) and suggest a relationship that should have been the centerpiece of the movie. Instead, Walken is again mere window dressing and is gone from the rest of the proceedings.
Rick Senger
