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"We Put the SIN in Cinema"
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Violent revenge is the name of the game if you've seen a new theatrical
release in the month of April. One week after Kill Bill: Vol. 2 and The
Punisher hit screens, Tony Scott's Man On Fire blasts its way into your
heart with a couple of things those other films don't have: An A-list
protagonist and a running time that comes dangerously close to breaching two
and a half hours.
Fire isn't even April's only revenge remake, sharing that delightful honor
with Walking Tall (which is over a full hour shorter than Fire), as the A.J.
Quinnell novel on which the movie is based was already made into a 1987 film
with Scott Glenn. Here, Glenn's role of an ex-mercenary-turned-child
bodyguard is played by Out of Time's Denzel Washington, who has apparently
decided to only accept offers to star in films that follow the important
three-letter word/two-letter word/four-letter word pattern.
Washington's Creasy is a drunk who barely manages to land a job protecting
little Lupita (Dakota Fanning, The Cat in the Hat), the only child of a
struggling Mexico City business owner (pop sensation Marc Anthony) and his
American wife (Radha Mitchell, Phone Booth), from falling victim to the
lucrative Mexican kidnapping industry. Initially, Creasy tries to act
professional by maintaining his distance from Pita. But she's Dakota
Frigging Fanning - that shit's like Kryptonite, man. Soon he's helping her
train for swim meets and braiding her hair while they talk about the cute
boys in social studies. This goes on for an hour, and frankly, it would be
enough to frame most banal Hollywood offerings. Pita wins her big race,
Creasy scales back his alcohol intake, and even cracks a smile once or
twice. It's a happy ending. Thanks, Li'l Cracker!
Only Fire isn't over. You're only 40% into it at this point, which is when
Pita does get kidnapped despite Creasy squeezing bullets into her abductors.
When the dust settles, Creasy has killed four, including two on-the-take
cops, and is implicated in Pita's snatching (thankfully, Fire doesn't veer
into Denzel's typical Accused Black Man Against the Corrupt System
territory). After a brief recovery, the mad-as-hell Creasy decides to take
the law into his own hands, launching a revenge mission, Buford
Pusser/Beatrix Kiddo/Frank Castle-style. His old mercenary pal (Christopher
Walken, Gigli) gets to peel off a great line - "Creasy's art is death; he's
about to create his masterpiece."
There's a bit more to the story than just revenge. Creasy is a religious
chap who knows he needs to right a whole lot of wrongs he's created over the
years. Before she's taken, Pita gives him a St. Jude medallion - because
even a little kid could recognize Creasy is a lost cause - which gives him
something to play with during integral moments between cutting off fingers
and administering C4 suppositories to his victims. That should pretty much
tell you how Fire is going to end, and if you're in possession of at least
one-half of a brain, fingering those responsible for the kidnapping won't be
too difficult, either.
The predictability of Fire is one of two big glitches in the film. The
other - Fire's editing - is more a matter of individual preference. The
movie could have been called Editing Bay On Fire, as it veers into the realm
of a Michael Bay offering. If editor Christian Wagner was paid by the jump
cut, he'd have made way more than Tom Cruise's going salary. Personally, I
thought it was a bit much, but the really intensely cut scenes were usually
accompanied by a Nine Inch Nails song to help offset the visual insanity of
it all. And there's the little matter of not understanding how the offspring
of a Mexican could be so pale, but that's just being picky.
Thankfully, there's a lot to offset the above, and most of it is acting.
Washington, who re-teams with Crimson Tide's Scott, clocks in with his
strongest performance since The Hurricane. He's not my favorite actor in the
world, but when he's not playing a self-righteous character, I like him a
lot more. Fanning can still act circles around him, though. Her
preternatural acting ability is almost frightening, and Fire takes a big hit
when her character disappears with 90 minutes left. Both her and Washington
speak passable Spanish, in small doses, with seemingly little effort. Those
last three words would also be adequate to describe the paper-thin work of
Walken and Mickey Rourke.
2:27 - R for language and strong violence
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37636 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1274536 X-RT-TitleID: 1131820 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 7/10
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