Inconsistent script + style overkill = Underwhelming (**)

Rating: 5/10 (8 June 2004)

A shifty script and style overkill drowns this over-the-top kidnapping story.
Denzel Washington stars as Creasy, an alcoholic former Marine predictably haunted by the past who reluctantly accepts a job in Mexico City as bodyguard to a little girl named Pita (Dakota Fanning).

The first half of the movie, which is about Pita gradually drawing Creasy out of his shell, is ok. Washington is his old reliable self and Fanning once again proves to be one of the best child actors working.

Then, Pita is kidnapped and apparently killed. Creasy swears to the family that he'll kill everyone responsible. Fun!
Director Tony Scott has two great movies under his belt (1992's "True Romance" and 1995's "Crimson Tide"), but this film goes on the pile of his other style-over-substance movies.
In "Man On Fire" Scott experiments with all sorts of crazy film and sound techniques (even the subtitles don't stand still), which is pretty cool for about 30 minutes. After that, it feels annoying and manipulative, because it's obviously just there to distract from the very ordinary story.

What's most troubling is the fact that Creasy's character goes from being a human being in the first half to being a sadistic vengeance machine out of a Chuck Norris movie in the second. If it was a good movie, it might examine what makes Creasy nearly as ruthless and vicious as the people he's after, but instead it just paints him as some sort of big, cuddly, moral hero. We're supposed to love him because he reads the Bible and because Pita names her teddy bear after him (aww!). Probably a good thing she can't see her Creasy-bear cutting off fingers, ears, and blowing people up.

It's not a terrible movie - the acting is pretty good, and the cinematography is good when the editors aren't trying to give you an epileptic seizure. But this is an overlong and brutal movie (that fails to examine its brutality) and it leaves a sour taste in your mouth, no matter how much they try to cover it up with "Gladiator"-style singing on the soundtrack.