Reasonable thriller but far, far, far, far, far, far, far too long.

Rating: 5/10 (22 May 2010)

Man on Fire starts as troubled ex-special forces agent John Creasey (Denzel Washington) is hired by Lisa (Radha Mitchell) & Samuel (Marc Anthony) as a bodyguard to protect their young daughter Pita (Dakota Fanning) in Mexico city. While out with Pita an armed team of gangsters kidnap Pita & seriously injure Creasey, while in hospital recovering from his life threatening wounds the ransom drop goes horribly wrong & a corrupt police official steals the $10 million ransom & the kidnappers nephew is shot dead in the process. Everyone is unhappy & the kidnappers kill Pita in retribution, Lisa & Samuel are distraught while Creasey when he finds out swears revenge on those who arranged the kidnapping or profited from it. Creasey tools himself up with some serious firepower & sets his sights on the kidnappers, people will die...
This American British co-production was produced & directed by Tony Scott with both Michael Bay & Antoine Fuqua turning it down, as straight ahead action revenge thriller Man on Fire is alright but there are one or two glaring problems that prevent it from an unreserved recommendation. The biggest problem for me is the just shy of two & a half hour running time, to be honest it's a fairly simple story & somehow the makers have stretched to breaking point. If you examine the film not that much happens, man meets girl, girl is all cute & stops him from committing suicide & binge drinking, girl gets kidnapped, man loses it & wants revenge, there are one or two minor twists about double crosses but basically that's it & it takes up to the fiftieth minute before Pita is kidnapped. Now while the build-up is alright & obviously a lot of time is spent on the ever growing relationship between Creasey & Pita it does get a little tiring & at times they seem like an old married couple with the young Pita coming across like a seasoned psychologist at times, to me the friendship was getting a little weird at times. Man on Fire is slow, very slow. I also hated the ending, the twist that Pita is still alive sort of dilutes everything that has gone before, all the emotion & blood spilt is sort of tainted with the revelation & in an otherwise gritty & uncompromising film seems like an attempt at some sort of happy ending where the cute little kid survived. It felt wrong. Having said that it's a solid enough thriller, the whole revenge plot is a solid base, the character's are good & the running time means they are fleshed out to sometimes unnecessary lengths & there are one or two fairly brutal moments.
I hated the way man on Fire was shot, the quick editing, the bleached mess out with colours, the shaky hand held look, the twitchy camera & generally the style of Man on Fire is everything that I hate about modern action films all rolled into one. This is an eyesore as far as I am concerned & it becomes frustrating to watch. Although not that graphic there's a fair bit of violence including shoot-outs & a couple of torture scenes. There's a couple of exploding cars, a crashed car & an exploding nightclub but little in the way of spectacular set-pieces as it goes for a more low key gritty more realistic if you will feel. This is actually a remake of the Italian French co-produced film Man on Fire (1987) with both film being based on the novel by A.J. Quinnell.
With a supposed budget of about $70,000,000 this has good production values the Mexican locations are used quite nicely but the look of the film is just horrible but that's down to editing & film-making techniques. The acting is good, Denzel is good as usual in a role originally offered to the likes of Robert De Niro, Will Smith, Tom Cruise & Bruce Willis who all turned it down. Marlon Brando was the original choice to play Rayburn but Christopher Walken is always a safe bet although he is rather wasted in a bit part role.
Man on Fire is a decent enough action thriller that simply goes on for too long & a cop out ending where the kid lives doesn't help either. Overall if you have two & a half hours to waste then Man on Fire is violent enough & is alright but it does have flaws.