A nice idea from Tony Scott.

Rating: 8/10 (4 May 2005)

***1/2 out of ****
Man On Fire is a movie about kidnapping. Even when the movie begins, we see the titles on screen about how kidnapping takes place in South America. In the beginning of the movie, we meet the character of Denzel Washington, Creasy, a man who served the army and now is looking for a new job. We also meet Ray, character of Chirstopher Walken. Both Walken and Washington are really interesting in the movie. However, we already know these two actors are good and can do a pretty nice job. We must pay attention to the real star of the movie, at least in my opinion, which is, of course, Dakota Fanning. After watching Uptown Girls (2003), I must say Fanning improved a lot. I, now, have four more words for her: great performance, great role! She's not artificial as she is in Uptown anymore, this time she's a child who just wants to be friends with her new bodyguard Creasy. The beginning of the movie is focused entirely on the relationship between Creasy and Pita. She's sweet, pretty, smiles a lot and, as a matter of fact, it's her turn now to make someone smile, as she does with Creasy when they're studying history together and not someone make her smile. She studying to play the piano, but her real passion is to swim. And to improve her skills in order to win in the first place. She tells Creasy she can't win, because she's slow. Creasy says she's not slow, and she answers that she can't make even to the third position, so Creasy tells her that maybe she really is slow. If it was for Uptown, she'd probably order Creasy to shut up and to respect her because he's working for her. But instead of that she does exactly what she was supposed to do in Uptown to make her character nice: smile. So Creasy and Pita train together so she can win at the swimming pool event. So begins their friendship.
But as said before, Man On Fire is a movie about kidnapping. Something wrong happens in the street and Pita is taken away by a Mexican organization and Creasy, shot almost to death laying on the ground is unable to protect her. The group proposes a rescue by asking in return the quantity of 10 million dollars. Something goes wrong again and it is believed now Pita's dead. As we see Creasy restore himself in order to hunt the bad guys, at first, we get a little upset. It gives us the impression that this movie is just another of those old Steven Seagal movies about revenge, about a guy who must kill everyone just because he's moved by anger. It is actually fun to see Washington wasting the bad guys and asking them questions about further details of the organization. But even when that happens, it still feels just as a revenge movie. But something told me Pita was still alive because I can't believe Tony Scott, a great director, just killed the very big star of the movie. And when we find out that's actually true, we see that Man On Fire is worth watching. Because it's not just a revenge movie, but a movie where a man has an objective: save the girl. And he does that very heroic.
I've watched also, another movie of Tony Scott, Spy Game (2001), which I still need to write the review. By watching these two movies, we must agree that the brother of Ridley Scott is a very talented professional. In his movies, he shows us violence, most of the time, crime situations, in a way we understand better how things turn out to be in such countries. In Spy Game we see how the CIA really works and we see also a lot of countries. This time, Man On Fire is entirely focused just in Mexico, but still we see how things happens in there. I haven't watched the other Tony Scott movies, but these two, for me, had the same objectives: show us how crime works in different ways in different places. And that is a very nice idea, so, congratulations, Mr. Scott!
Harry Gregson-Williams is one more time back to give the movie a great score. He also works on the Konami's Metal Gear trilogy video game for the PlayStation, and in both Spy Game and Man On Fire and in the Metal Gear trilogy, he delivers a very good piece of music. With nice soundtrack, a great director, the infinite improvement of a very good actress like Fanning and the presence of two great actors like Washington and Walken, you really got to watch this movie.