Did not meet expectations

Rating: 5/10 (28 March 2005)

Having previously seen Tony Scott's Spygame I was looking forward to seeing this. Although Spygame had some irritating camera techniques whereby it would zoom in and out very quickly, pan and scan, colour bleach, all for no apparent reason other than to (coupled with the slightly corny music) give it a pop video feel, I felt the movies strengths outweighed it's weaknesses and maybe TS was cutting his teeth and trying out new techniques in order to refine a new style.
After seeing Man on Fire it would appear that TS loves these meaningless camera-shake, v.fast pan and zoom stuff and used it most of the time. I love new techniques, but when they actually obscure what you are trying to see, then clearly they are not efficient. Maybe TS should watch a bit more Luc Besson ;-)
The story started off well paced and had enough characterisation to involve you with the actors - notably the complex relationship between the American/Mexican couple, and of course the bodyguard and little girl.
However when he goes on his trail of revenge, he displays all the psychotic and sadistic tendencies of the people we are supposed to hate. It also becomes the "1 Man takes on the world" which unless you are VERY young is hard to take seriously. Besides the films initial premise was much more intelligent than this, and the feelings of paranoia and vulnerability were intense. Further to this presumably to be a successful kidnap gang you would need to be ruthless, efficient and good at your job. The men he was chasing seemed to me to be portrayed as clumsy (apart from The Voice) and just good fodder for whatever torture he had dreamt up.
In conclusion - in many respects this is a compelling film, but I felt that Tony Scott unintentionally trivialised it by going down the pop-video, lone man kills everything route. From the first 35 minutes I expected so much more, and had it not been for the excellent performances from Denzel Washington, Christopher Walken and Dakota Fanning, plus the ever brilliant Rachel Ticotin it would have been hard to stomach the remaining minutes.
In conclusion: worth a watch if you are in a kick-ass hate mood, but if not I think there are other films by Tony Scott more worth watching.