Tony Scott painfully misdirects what could've been an amazing movie

Rating: 6/10 (9 March 2005)

Man On Fire has the style of Oliver Stone on a bad day. In fact, it has the style of a 2 minute trailer. If they re-edited this and toned down the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, this would be a great movie. I'm not saying get rid of all of it, because some of it was effective, but A LOT of it was not needed.
As far as story goes, it was very good. Creasy is the familiar kind of character who is in dire need of redemption, and he receives it from an unlikely person: the child he's been hired to protect, Pita. Their relationship takes a good half hour or so (movie time wise) to develop, so it makes it all the more painful once she's kidnapped and supposedly killed. Of course, I don't think anyone in the audience really believes she's dead. In fact, I would have been more surprised if she actually was. Fortunately there were plenty of twists and turns along the way that made me forgive this predictability.
The movie does a good job of making you care for the characters, but that probably is mostly because of the script and acting, not Tony Scott's hack directing. Denzel Washington gives a wonderfully intense performance as the man on fire, and everyone's favourite lil' child actor Dakota Fanning does a good job of just doing what she's supposed to with her role. She's supposed to be a cute little girl that is instantly lovable and she's able to do it effortlessly because, well, she's Dakota Fanning.
Man On Fire is just about 2 and a half hours long and it kept my interest all the way through. The interest wasn't always positive since I had to roll my eyes every 5 minutes at the nausea-inducing editing. It took away so much! It was such a good movie but its biggest disappointment is that it could have been great.
My rating: 6/10