Predictable, poor music/soundtrack, glorification of violence

Rating: 5/10 (31 July 2005)

One of the worst pretentious, unintelligent ways to ruin scenes in a movie is to misplace or indulge in music, soundtracks, or sound effects that have no business being there. A woeful trend in movies nowadays is trying to substitute indistinct female singing to somehow enhance poignancy or emotion - IT Doesn't WORK and its a terrible cop-out to adding proper music or even silence. It's mindless and destroys the picture, much like when well placed sounds/music make a movie so fantastic and memorable in its positive counterpart. Man on Fire suffers badly from this. The cinematography is at times interesting, but gets distracting. Denzel Washington does a good job, but he's done much better, and the child actress Dakota Fanning was much too adult-like - whether that was a character problem in the writing, or the the actress herself, or maybe even the direction or a combination, it doesn't matter. Finally, the movie is badly predictable. It's introduction is too long, and Ceasy's killing spree is glorified and preaches violence as a cure-all. One of the main attractions is the setting of Mexico City - some excellent visuals and atmosphere....however, poor soundtrack and mindless revenge served in a predicable manner pull down this movie to less than average.