Man On Fire (Film Review)

2004 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Tony Scott; Written by: Brian Helgeland
Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Giannini, Radha Mitchell, Marc Anthony, Rachel Ticotin, and Mickey Rourke
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 146 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 8/10

John Creasy was once a star CIA field agent, involved in many violent altercations that have left him a burned out shell containing nothing but guilt. Creasy tries to fill the emptiness with alcohol as he aimlessly drifts from place to place, but he finds himself closer and closer to ending it all...until he meets Pita. After accepting a bodyguard job in Mexico City, Creasy finds his walls of defense and pain slowly crumble as he begins to care deeply for the young girl he's been charged to protect. Creasy becomes a surrogate for Pita's often absent father, and Pita helps Creasy feel human again. After a bullet self-aimed at his temple jams, Creasy begins to feel like he has been divinely placed in Pita's life. He begins to read his Bible more, feels a renewed sense of purpose...and then Pita is kidnapped and seemingly killed. Now, all that purpose, all that passion and care is aimed at one thing: burning everyone and everything involved in Pita's kidnapping to the ground. Because Creasy is...a MAN ON FIRE.
When Tony Scott was alive, his films were often slammed for being all style and no substance, nothing but headache-inducing flash. Now slightly a decade past his death, Scott is regarded as an auteur whose filmmaking was ahead of its time. Even in the brutal, violent revenge action subgenre, his 2004 hit, Man on Fire, feels like a fiery breath of fresh air. Scott places the viewer into Creasy's fractured mental state with shaky jump cuts, barrages of sound, and captions and subtitles that sometimes fade with one word lingering on screen a bit longer than the others. For those weary of tired, overused frameworks, Scott throws out the filmmaking mold and tries something altogether fresh and unique. Rather than overwhelm, though, this stylistically new and bombastic use of imagery and sound creates a river of emotions that sweeps the viewer away, or at least this viewer. 
Denzel Washington and Scott had quite a fruitful partnership, and Man on Fire may be its peak. As Creasy, Washington has the chance to show just how multifaceted his skills are, going from despair, to guarded happiness, to a supreme force of nature the world around him is in no way ready for. If not for the shortsightedness of 2004's critics, Washington could have racked up accolades for this performance. He also has tremendous chemistry with a young and very effective Dakota Fanning as Pita, as Scott takes his time investing viewers in the duo's friendship, making it feel believable and vital to both, so that Creasy's brutal acts in the latter half of the film make logical sense in the world as Scott and screenwriter, Brian Helgeland, have presented it. Again, the critics of 2004 missed the boat, complaining that the film relishes in violence, missing the fact that Creasy takes no joy from it, is in fact crushed that he's been forced back into the man he was before Pita because of what's happened to her. The work Scott does early in the film to make sure the viewer knows just what being that man cost Creasy makes his actions in the latter half even more tragic. Creasy's acts of brutal torture and murder bring him no satisfaction, as they're just marks off a mental checklist. For all the hemming and hawing about Scott's relentless style and the film's brutality, the critics somehow missed the groundwork Scott laid to ensure that this style and brutality have a purpose...and it's a style this reviewer in 2023 misses dearly.