Movie title
Man on Fire
Genre(s)
Thriller, Drama
Country
USA
Release date
July 27, 2010
Director
Tony Scott
Cast
Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Marc Anthony, Radha Mitchell, Christopher Walke), Giancarlo Giannini, Rachel Ticotin, Jesús Ochoa, Mickey Roarke
Theme
Revenge
Plot
In Mexico City, a former assassin swears vengeance on those who committed an unspeakable act against the family he was hired to protect.
Setting
Mexico City.
Characters
Creasy (Denzel Washington), Pita (Dakota Fanning) and Rayburn (Christopher Walken).
Good points
Bad points
Tony Scott's "Man on Fire" employs superb craftsmanship and a powerful Denzel Washington performance in an attempt to elevate genre material. Director Tony Scott maintains an elegiac tone. Instead of pumping up the level of testosterone, he keeps everything except his camerawork low-key, lending a mournful, not triumphant, air to the proceedings. With each successive feature, Tony Scott's MTV-inspired style, which includes jump-cuts, whip-pans, and all sorts of other herky-jerky camera tricks, grows more extreme. This is a solid motion picture and a betterthan-average example of a revenge flick. By concentrating on the emotional impact rather than the pyrotechnics, ammunition, and action/thriller elements, this comes across as an effective piece of drama, and it doesn't cheat us with a Hollywood cop-out ending.
We're seduced by the jagged photography and editing, which reminds us a little of "City of God" and "21 Grams, and it diverts us from the story. There is no excuse for the moral hypocrisy of a picture that couples brutal, over-the-top violence with a bogus message of redemption.
By: Beatriz Losada Barbara Alexandra (2nd B)
17