A Waste of Washington

Rating: 6/10 (22 April 2010)

There have been so many action thrillers made in the last 20 years or so that it must be getting increasingly hard to come up with something original. 'Man On Fire' is a case in point.
Basically, this movie is a montage of all the familiar elements meshed together, presumably in the hope that collectively they cannot fail. I have encountered this phenomenon in other movies, and they induce a strange sense of de-ja-vu whilst watching.
So let's see; we have the burnt-out expert (Washington) who's taken to the bottle, but is coaxed out of retirement for that 'special' job. That's a Bruce Willis speciality. Then there's the 'wiseman' (Walken), the goodbuddy who understands all of his problems but sticks by him, and also supplies his professional needs (read weapons) whilst opening any official doors. Then there's the inevitable sleazeball, here played so oleaginously by Mickey Rourke, that I expect to see a slime trail when he walks. There's the innocents - this time a mummy (Rada) and oh-so-saccharine-sweet young daughter (Fanning). And of course; there's the expendables - about a dozen unpleasant dead-men-walking.
Does it work? not a jot.
Washington - of whom I'm a great fan - is positively wasted in this pedestrian predictable role. He's an ex-government assassin offered a supposedly sleeper job of bodyguarding a young girl from risk of ransom kidnap in Latin America. Inevitably, she is kidnapped, but he goes down fighting, only surviving multiple gunshots by a hair's breadth. There's a cock-up in the ransom pay-off whilst he is convalescing, and the bad guys murder the girl. Or so we believe.
Time for some payback.
The first half of the movie entails a rather Spielberg-sweet relationship evolving between the girl and her bodyguard during which he and she are frequently unchaperoned in each other's bedrooms, and also at the swimming-pool where she is in swimsuit. Some scenes almost seem to hint at paedoplilia. I can't imagine any responsible mother allowing such intimacy between her daughter and a complete stranger, the only thing known about his character being that he is a ruthlessly violent state murderer. He becomes her de-facto uncle and so her 'death' is personal (yawn).
The second half of the movie entails Washington unravelling the conspiracy and bumping-off all concerned.
You can see 'Rambo'; you can see 'Death Wish'; you can see 'Bodyguard' and probably several others. At one point, the mother - played by Rada Mitchell - throws a tantrum on hearing that her daughter is lost, and orders all the security bods out of her house. The line and its delivery is lifted neat and clean straight out of 'Pitch Black' in which she also co-starred, ordering the other survivors away when she realises her skipper is doomed. Check it out if you don't believe me.
Looking at the cast list - Washington, Mitchell, Rourke, Walken, Fanning et al; you might be persuaded that this is really going to drive. Don't be fooled. It's tack. What's worse, the whole movie is riddled with silly little flashbacks and split-second asides, making all the more irritating than entertaining.
Daftest of all; the kid isn't dead. Despite the fact that the villains have claimed she is. Despite the fact that they've stopped negotiating; she's still alive all along. Not only that, her own father is involved in the kidnapping plot!.
I'll stop there. It's nowhere near as daft as 'Flightplan', but it's daft enough. Washington demonstrates that you can have a great deal of smoke without so much as a spark.
Go for 'The Pelican Brief'.