Summary: Style trumps substance in "Man on Fire", a slick, brooding reunion of "Crimson Tide" star Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott. The ominous, crime-ridden setting is Mexico City, where a dour, alcoholic warrior with a mysterious Black Ops past (Washington) seeks redemption as the devoted bodyguard of a lovable 9-year-old girl (the precociously gifted Dakota Fanning), then responds with predictable fury when she is kidnapped. Prolific screenwriter Brian Helgeland ("Mystic River", "L.A. Confidential") sets a solid emotional foundation for Washington's tormented character, and Scott's stylistic excess compensates for a distended plot that's both repellently violent and viscerally absorbing. Among Scott's more distracting techniques is the use of free-roaming, comic-bookish subtitles... "even when they're unnecessary"! Adapted from a novel by A.J. Quinnell and previously filmed as a 1987 vehicle for Scott Glenn, "Man on Fire" is roughly on par with Scott's similar 1990 film "Revenge", efficiently satisfying Washington's incendiary bloodlust under a heavy blanket of humid, doom-laden atmosphere. "--Jeff Shannon"
Man on Fire
(2004)
