Review: Man on Fire
April 26, 2004; Regal Cinemas Falmouth #1
* * 1/4
It feels like revenge movies have had a bit of a resurgence in the last year. Kill Bill, The Punisher, Walking Tall, Man on Fire... in each film, the lead character is seeking some measure of vengeance against those who have destoryed their lives or hurt their families. Some, like Kill Bill, portray and justify this exceptionally well. Others fail in these ambitions, and unfortunately Man on Fire falls into the latter category.
There's just not enough feeling to the movie. Entertainment is so flooded with violence at this point that in order for an audience to really connect to and feel the true weight and severity of extreme violence as a legitimate course of action, the audience must be able to feel like the violence is justified. That means the good guy must be shown to suffer greatly before the violence ensues, and the bad guys must be shown to deserve everything they get. Every member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad got precisely what was coming to them in the Kill Bill duology, and before it even started, we knew that because of what she went through, the Bride needed to be the one to dish out the justice. That setup is nonexistent in Man on Fire. Yes, we see that Creasy (Denzel Washington) really does care for Pita (Dakota Fanning), the girl he's been hired to protect, and is heartbroken and destroyed by the news of her death. But there's never any real indication of what sorrow she brought him out of. It was obvious he was depressed and upset, but it's never made clear as to why. There's just this progression of miserable, happy, destroyed, homicidal which doesn't sit as normal or human. Denzel does the best he can with it and does well, as the world has come to expect him to, but it didn't feel like he got a whole lot to work with, character-wise.
It also felt like director Tony Scott was really trying to be daring with his camera, using quick montages and effects to create some disjoined symbol for the way Creasy's mind was working at the time, but he overlooked the benefits of keeping a camera still and steady in order to tell the story through showing the action. Creasy's acts and his demeanor while committing them speak for themselves; the audience doesn't need help to realize that this is a man who has been driven to the brink of insanity by the death of this little girl. The effort is there for the 'big picture' image, but he's trying too hard.
This was a hard movie to judge. Denzel is as good as he can be with what he has, and Dakota Fanning has more talent than a good amount of established actors three or four times her age - for her to be so convincing at her age with some of the things this movie put her through is astounding. Unfortunately, the movie is visually not well-constructed, and Creasy's justification is weak at best. And it's long. 40 minutes could have been cut out of this movie and not have been missed, so long as there was no reduction to screen time between Dakota and Denzel. Their scenes are by far the film's best, but as the focus shifts quickly away from them together, the movie loses its overall focus as well.
April 26, 2004; Regal Cinemas Falmouth #1
* * 1/4
It feels like revenge movies have had a bit of a resurgence in the last year. Kill Bill, The Punisher, Walking Tall, Man on Fire... in each film, the lead character is seeking some measure of vengeance against those who have destoryed their lives or hurt their families. Some, like Kill Bill, portray and justify this exceptionally well. Others fail in these ambitions, and unfortunately Man on Fire falls into the latter category.
There's just not enough feeling to the movie. Entertainment is so flooded with violence at this point that in order for an audience to really connect to and feel the true weight and severity of extreme violence as a legitimate course of action, the audience must be able to feel like the violence is justified. That means the good guy must be shown to suffer greatly before the violence ensues, and the bad guys must be shown to deserve everything they get. Every member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad got precisely what was coming to them in the Kill Bill duology, and before it even started, we knew that because of what she went through, the Bride needed to be the one to dish out the justice. That setup is nonexistent in Man on Fire. Yes, we see that Creasy (Denzel Washington) really does care for Pita (Dakota Fanning), the girl he's been hired to protect, and is heartbroken and destroyed by the news of her death. But there's never any real indication of what sorrow she brought him out of. It was obvious he was depressed and upset, but it's never made clear as to why. There's just this progression of miserable, happy, destroyed, homicidal which doesn't sit as normal or human. Denzel does the best he can with it and does well, as the world has come to expect him to, but it didn't feel like he got a whole lot to work with, character-wise.
It also felt like director Tony Scott was really trying to be daring with his camera, using quick montages and effects to create some disjoined symbol for the way Creasy's mind was working at the time, but he overlooked the benefits of keeping a camera still and steady in order to tell the story through showing the action. Creasy's acts and his demeanor while committing them speak for themselves; the audience doesn't need help to realize that this is a man who has been driven to the brink of insanity by the death of this little girl. The effort is there for the 'big picture' image, but he's trying too hard.
This was a hard movie to judge. Denzel is as good as he can be with what he has, and Dakota Fanning has more talent than a good amount of established actors three or four times her age - for her to be so convincing at her age with some of the things this movie put her through is astounding. Unfortunately, the movie is visually not well-constructed, and Creasy's justification is weak at best. And it's long. 40 minutes could have been cut out of this movie and not have been missed, so long as there was no reduction to screen time between Dakota and Denzel. Their scenes are by far the film's best, but as the focus shifts quickly away from them together, the movie loses its overall focus as well.
posted by Matt S. at
11:54 PM
