Writer and director should have been fired

Rating: 1/10 (22 September 2014)

To begin with, MOF is quite promising: an alcoholic gunslinger in obvious need of redemption is hired to bodyguard the precocious, annoying daughter of a rich, important Mexican and his leather mini-skirt-wearing WASP wife. The dynamic of how Denzel quickly develops a better relationship with the girl that she has with her father is plenty of plot to be going on with and rolls along quite well: however, he unexpectedly and incompetently doesn't manage to prevent her from being kidnapped. And that's where MOF goes off the rails. It turns from a sentimental 'troubled tough guy redeemed by cute little girl' movie into 'alcoholic gunslinger eventually does Death Wish with fajitas'.
Christopher Walken, as Denzel's mentor buddy, demonstrates that Mexico has no decent Euro-hairdressers, and as the movie goes on (and on), you get more and more gimmicky frame-jumps, intermittent subtitles, gratuitous digital effects, and oh, to be honest I gave up at this point. Apparently Denzel (Creasy) does all sorts of unmentionable things to the bad guys, and there's a letdown ending - but frankly, I'd stopped giving a hoot by halfway. Didn't care about the kid, didn't care about Denzel, didn't care about the Mexican police force's corruption problem. Nor will you.