Man on Fire

An burnt-out ex-military operative (Denzel Washington) declares war on a kidnapping ring in Mexico City after the young girl (Dakota Fanning) he was paid to protect is abducted.

Man on Fire is a solid, well-made, revenge movie that’s helped quite a bit by the charisma of it’s stars.

Denzel Washington is cool and believable as a burn-out military operative, and Christopher Walken is his usual enjoyable self as his buddy, but it’s Dakota Fanning who really makes the movie. She has to be precocious enough to both charm the audience and believably break through Washington’s hard exterior, and yet still be vulnerable enough so that the audience feels protective of her as well. It’s a fine line, but she makes it look easy.

Visually, Man on Fire fits right in with the fast-paced, music-video themed blockbusters that Michael Bay and McG seem to churn out regularly, and this hurts the film in it’s final half hour, as the frantic editing seems to build to a climax that never happens. A slightly more restrained approach throughout could have avoided this.

Though it runs 146 minutes, Man on Fire feels 20 minutes shorter. This is due mainly to a very tight script that takes the right amount of time building the character’s relationships before kicking into full-on action mode. While the scene where Fanning gives Washington a flower was both redundant (she’d just given him a necklace) and disappointing (it clearly telegraphed what was about to happen) the rest of the script is pretty much spot-on.