Denzel Washington's Performance Is Better Than The Movie As A Whole

Rating: 5/10 (25 October 2008)

I watched this movie largely because of the presence of Denzel Washington in the cast. He does not disappoint. His portrayal of Creasy is both powerful and believable, and he does a good job of showing the character's development over the course of the film from a cold and largely uncaring figure ("I'm your guard, not your friend" he says to young Pita, played by Dakota Fanning) to his final admission that he loves her, a love portrayed by his self-sacrifice for her sake. As strong as Washington was, however, the movie on the whole disappointed me.
The two halves of the movie are very different in tone. I thought the first half was the better. Although there's a bit of a mystery to Creasy's background, except that we know he used to work in counter-insurgency and has a drinking problem, the characters are otherwise introduced nicely and pretty well fleshed out. The first half also offers a truly scary portrait of child kidnapping in Mexico. The second half was less satisfying. It became extremely violent, losing its focus on the characters for the most part. It lacked flow and it was difficult to follow at times. I was also a bit put off by director Tony Scott's "style" for lack of a better way to put it. His directorial decisions were at times quite irritating - and must I point out that you DO NOT need English subtitles when the characters are already speaking English - which for some strange reason happened a few times! In spite of these weaknesses, the movie manages to hold your attention, largely because you really want to find out what has happened to Pita, and the ending was a noble ending rather than a classic happy ending, which would have been too easy to include. Overall - 5/10