A real review for real movie lovers...

Rating: 9/10 (14 September 2004)

This is my first ever reveiew for IMDb, I felt it was necessary, allow me to explain. When I came across the reviews for "Man on Fire" I was amazed by the sheer and unfiltered venom of some of the reviews that I was reading. Shocked even. The way the reviewers described the movie made it seem like the only thing worse would be to get gang raped by a tribe of HIV positive silver-backs. I mean Tony Scott is a good director, right? Denzel Washington is one of the finest actors of our generation, right? How could this movie be that bad? Well, I rented it from the local video store, sat down with an open mind and watched...those reviews were... well...full of crap, and that's the only way for me to put it without being forever banned from the web site.
"Man on Fire" is the story of a former assassin who has fallen on hard times. John Creasy(Washington)takes on a job to be the bodyguard of a little girl, Lupita Ramos(Fanning). In the beginning the hardened Creasy rebuffs the childs attempts at friendship, but eventually softens up and they develop a sweet relationship. This was a little cliché for me but not totally unexpected in a movie like this. Eventually young Lupita is kidnapped and Creasy is gravely injured trying to protect her, some say the first half of the movie moves to slowly, but it's a tool used to build up the relationship of the main characters to the point when Creasy does go on the offensive, we, the audience can be on his side(he does some pretty sadistic stuff). The movie flows very well, it's around 2 hours 25 mins long but you barely notice the length. The movie is engrossing, action packed and has some great elements of suspense and intrigue that I wasn't really expecting. The actors were good, the direction was good, the location and sets were good, everything about the movie was good. To me that equals a good movie, not a great one, but a good one... a really good one.
So, If you haven't seen man on fire yet, and are surfing the web, trying to see what it's all about, and you come to IMDb I really hope you get a chance to read this review first, or at least it be one of the first, those other guys will lead you down a dark road full of silver-back gorillas griping a handful of condoms, just kidding, everyone has the right to their opinion. Trust me though "Man on Fire" is a movie worth seeing.
This was kind of fun, I hope to talk to everyone again soon.