Director Report Card: Tony Scott (2004)

12. Man on Fire

In 1980, A.J. Quinnell published “Man on Fire,” the first of five novels featuring former French Foreign Legion soldier Creasy. The book became a bestseller and, by the mid-eighties, interest in a film adaptation soon arose. Tony Scott was very interested in directing but, since he only had "The Hunger" on his resume at the time, the producers deemed him not experienced enough to make the movie. "Man on Fire" would ultimately be adapted by Élie Chouraqui and star Scott Glenn. Seventeen years passed, during which the 1987 version of "Man on Fire" slipped into obscurity. By now established as a very successful filmmaker, Tony Scott decided it was time he made his "Man on Fire." The remake, released in 2004, would immediately become more popular and well-known than the original. Which suggests Scott probably should've just been allowed to make the movie the first time he wanted to. 

John Creasy is a thoroughly traumatized ex-CIA assassin, drowning his sorrows in alcohol and near-suicidal. While visiting Mexico City, his old friend Paul suggests he finds work as a bodyguard. Creasy is soon hired by Samuel Ramos, a minor auto mogul. Creasy is tasked with protecting Ramos' eight year old daughter, Pita. The precocious girl soon chips away at Creasy's cold exterior and he becomes like a father figure to her. Months later, Pita is kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and Creasy is gravely injured. Someone sabotages the trade-off and Pita is seemingly killed. Now driven by a fiery vengeance, Creasy becomes determined to kill every single person reasonable for the kidnapping, from the smallest lackey to the head of the cartel. 

This "Man on Fire" is presumably a lot more famous than the 1987 version because Denzel Washington is a lot more famous than Scott Glenn. The film marks the beginning of a new period in the actor's career. After spending two decades as one of the most respected performers of his generation, Denzel would start starring in action movies. He has done action-packed flicks before this but bad-ass hero roles really seemed to become a priority for the star around this time. After "Man on Fire," Washington would appear in "Book of Eli," "2 Guns," "Safe House," "The Magnificent Seven" remake, two "Equalizer" movies, and three further collaborations with Tony Scott. Whether or not you think a multi-Oscar winner like Denzel is wasting his time doing shoot-em-up flicks like this is a matter of opinion. He certainly doesn't think that.

"Man on Fire" is certainly important to another cinematic action trend of the last decade. The movie is a notable example of what I call the "Dadsploitation" genre. These are films frequently about men who are middle-aged and have usually already lived a life full of action and violence, which they've formally retired from. Inevitably, they must utilize their very particular set of skills to protect, rescue, or avenge wives, daughters, sometimes sons, or surrogate wife/daughter/son figures. It's a specific fantasy designed to appeal to older men who want to feel like bad-asses but also define themselves first most as fathers and husbands. "Man on Fire" hits every note of the Dadsploitation set-up, making it a predecessor to "Taken" and all the similarly themed that followed in its wake. (Much like "Taken," it even stars an actor better known for his dramas than his action roles.)

Though it's a subgenre littered with themes of sexism and racism, I don't actually dislike Dadsploitation movies. They're often fun, in the same way similarly problematic films like classic westerns or eighties action flicks are. And I don't mind seeing Denzel be a bad-ass either. He's pretty good at it. The best scenes in "Man on Fire" are those devoted to Washington being steely, stern, and intimidating. When loading a rocket launcher, he gravely intones that forgiveness is in-between his victims and God and it's his job to arrange the meeting. Denzel's casualness when interrogating bad dudes is so smooth and charismatic that you hardly notice the movie partaking of that hoary cliche of a bad-ass in sunglasses slowly walking away from an explosion.

If you have even a passing familiarly with these types of movies, you know what's going to happen to poor little Pita. The movie devoted a lot of time to Creasy and the little girl getting to know each other. She softens his chilly exterior with her adorable ways. Eventually, she's as much a daughter to him as she is to her actual father. Creasy helps the girl with her swimming practices and piano classes. It's super hackneyed and manipulative but it totally works. Largely because Dakota Fanning, as Pita, really is that fucking cute. Like every Fanning character, she's smarter and more perceptive than you'd expect a girl her age to be. Yet the movie also allows Fanning to dance with her teddy bear or get tucked into bed. She's even missing two of her front teeth, to emphasize how precious she is. How can you not love her? Dakota's brute force adorableness makes the movie far more emotionally involving than it would've been with a lesser actress in the part. (Which makes me thankful that the film spares Pita from the more awful fate she suffered in the book.)

If "Man on Fire" was just surviving on the strength of its cast to enliven predictable material, I'd probably enjoy it just fine. Instead, Tony Scott decided to get extra-spicy with the visuals. Throughout the late nineties, Scott's already distinctive approach was growing increasingly exaggerated. With "Man on Fire," the director's style would go completely off the deep end. The movie rarely goes ten minutes without a jittery or distorted montage full of overlapping imageries and sounds. There's dramatic pauses, Michael Bay-like 360 shots, and bursts of either slow-motion or fast-motion footage. Text frequently appears on-screen, in different fonts and sizes. Even during its rare subdued moments, it still features washed-out and grainy photography. The film approaches sensory overload for the entirety of its runtime. During a sequence where Creasy intimidates some bad guys inside a nightclub, where pounding techno music is playing, it becomes completely overwhelming. "Man on Fire" is a lot to handle.

"Man on Fire's" visual aggression is met by a story with its fair share of pretensions. Creasy is introduced in a pretty bad emotional state as the film begins. I guess the frantic visuals are meant to convey his chaotic mental condition. (Though I'm not sure why it continues after he gets sober.) This culminates with a suicide attempt. His life is spared when, by pure chance, the bullet fails to fire. This event – which the film references many times with the self-important line "a bullet never lies" – is a miracle of sorts and the first of several religious references in the film. Creasy has unexplained scars on his hands, which feels like a stigmata reference. Blood runs from his hand by the end, confirming him as some sort of warped Christ figure. If that was too subtle for you, Pita gifts him a St. Jude's medal, the most obvious of the film's bizarre religious allusions. In a story that otherwise doesn't have much to do with religion or Christianity at all.

A thematic threads throughout the movie that are more compelling are those of redemption and corruption. Creasy is a man on the search for redemption, for the violent deeds in his past that are only alluded too. Yet he has to travel through an utterly corrupt world to get there. The police in Mexico City are hopelessly dirty. The kidnapping goes wrong because gangs are so intertwined with the police, a cop regularly stealing money meant to pay ransoms are so common, he's become protected from his crimes. As Creasy uncovers the truth about the kidnapping, he learns that Pita's father was involved in the conspiracy himself. On his path to save his own soul by saving an innocent little girl, Creasy has to run through a number of people who have utterly compromised their own morals.

Yet these attempts to add thematic depth to “Man on Fire” ultimately feel like pseudo-intellectual posturing after a while. It's another juvenile attempt to make this simple action story feel much more serious and important than it actually is. The movie's focus on sadistic violence, perpetrated by the protagonist, is another attempt to add grit and “realism” to the movie. Creasy frequently tortures the people he encounters on his quest. He duct tapes a low-level thug to a car seat, slices off his fingers, and cauterizes the wounds with a cigarette lighter. Later, he blindfolds another low-level thug, shoots his toes off, and intimidates him. The movie's most notorious moment of violence has him inserting plastic explosives up a corrupt cop's rectum. (The actual penetration is kept off-screen, thankfully.) All these people are killed, so Creasy's torture tactics really are just meant to get information. Never mind that torture is notoriously unreliable when extracting intel. Obviously, this is a morally gray story but it does feel weird that the “hero” brutally torturing his adversaries in pretty fucked-up ways are, the film seems to conclude, totally worth it.

Despite all the many issues I have with “Man on Fire,” from its obnoxious visuals to its self-important writing to its morally dubious center, I did come away from the movie kind of enjoying it. As originally scripted, “Man on Fire” ended with Creasy destroying the bad guys via pyrotechnics. However, Scott must have remembered the end of “Revenge” at one some point. He decided something a little more low-key and character driven would be fitting. “Man on Fire's” reliance on on-screen text and its unearned self-seriousness continues all the way to the end, as the film concludes with a dedication to a fictional character. Yet the movie is, if nothing else, utterly sincere about the relationship at the center of the story, between the lovable little girl and the cold-hearted man she charms. That is what ends up giving this loud, chaotic, excessively violent motion picture just enough of a sense of grace to make it worth watching.

Tony Scott continues to pepper the supporting cast with beloved actors, making otherwise forgettable little roles memorable because someone really entertaining is playing them. This is, as far as I can tell, why Christopher Walken plays Paul. The indistinct best buddy role becomes instantly fantastic because Christopher Walken is allowed to do his thing. Whether it's laughing about how he met his wife or delivering portentous dialogue about how fucked the bad guys are, Walken makes it sing. Mickey Rourke also appears briefly as the family lawyer, another role that is totally inessential but is enlivened by Rourke's weirdo energy. Memorable for the wrong reasons are Radha Mitchell – with a terrible Southern accent – as Ramos' trophy wife and pop star Marc Anthony – who seems totally out of his element – as Ramos himself. 

“Man on Fire” would open to good box office, ultimately grossing 170 million against its 40 million dollar budget. Critical reception was largely negative, most being as baffled by Scott's extreme style as I was. Yet the movie would be very popular on DVD and television. That's where the film found its target audience of middle-aged dads. I can't tell you how many raves I heard about this movie from older, pot-bellied, mustachioed co-workers over the years. The universal quality of “Man on Fire's” dad-ish themes are also obvious in the movie receiving two separate Bollywood remakes in 2005, one in Hindi and one in Tamil. Perhaps I should revisit the movie if I ever have a daughter of my own. For now, I'll say that “Man on Fire” works against itself more often than not but that the talent of its stars and the lizard-brain thrills of its premise go a long way towards redeeming it. [Grade: C+]