Rescue From Mexican Kidnappers.

Rating: 5/10 (8 April 2012)

This begins as an interesting, if not particularly original, story of character development -- the increasing bond between disillusioned body guard Denzel Washington and the artless innocence and open warmth of little Dakota Fanning as the daughter of a very wealthy couple in Mexico City.
I said it was unoriginal because, after the opening scenes, the viewer begins to anticipate the plot. The depressed Washington rejects Fanning's offer of friendship. He tries to shoot himself but fails. Fanning will be kidnapped. There will be some rough detective work in the neighborhoods outside the Pink Zone. Washington will be instrumental in the rescue of Fanning. He will no longer be disillusioned. Justice and happiness and blue skies.
But then it begins to look more interesting because it appears that after the kidnapping and the pay off go awry, Washington is shot almost mortally and Fanning is apparently killed by the kidnappers.
After that it goes completely off the rails. Under Dakota Fanning's guidance, Washington seems to have recovered his self confidence and his religious beliefs. He reads the Bible and fondles the St. Jude medal she's given him. But this is all narrative froth, because Washington's character then descends into torture porn. Informed that Fanning is no longer with us, Washington is asked what he's going to do now. "I'm going to do what I do best -- kill 'em." And he does. He cuts off fingers one at a time, shoots off an entire hand, plugs unarmed people through the feet, shoves a bomb up their rear ends and lets them explode, blows them apart with an RPG. This is religion? Whatever is left of the story is effectively ruined by directorial and editing excess. The director was Tony Scott and the editor was Christian Wagner. They do to the images what Washington does to his bound captives. There are lighting-fast cuts, negative shots, zooms, yo-yoing, slow motion, step motion, and fast motion in which people walk around like Charlie Chaplin. It's not just that the overuse of these techniques is distracting. They interfere with our ability to understand what's going on -- who's where, what time it is, elementary things like that.
Denzel Washington is okay, not much more than that. He doesn't have a great deal of range as an actor, though he's likable enough. Christopher Walken in a minor part excels, as usual, and Dakota Fanning gives what is probably the best performance in the film. She's "cute," but not the kind of "cute" that will enable her to sail through adolescence. She's not sexy like Jody Foster and not sublimely gorgeous like the young Brooke Shields. She's an exceptional actress however. Every line sounds believable.
I don't know about anyone else but all this busyness on the screen leaves me disaffected. I don't know how long that fad is going to last but I suspect that, sooner or later, a generation will watch these old movies and be as irritated as I am. I really don't need constant flashes of lightning in front of me, as if the whole movie were a thirty-second television commercial, because I am more than ten years old.