MAN ON FIRE

Get a pen. Write this down: the name of Denzel Washington’s character in Man on Fire is Creasy. C-r-e-a-s-y.

I mention this so that you might spare yourselves the suffering I endured for the first half-hour of director Tony Scott’s latest venture, as I desperately tried to decipher what the Hell people were calling him. Depending on who was saying it, I went back and forth between thinking his name was Gracy, Crazy, Greasy, Creasy, Cracy, Darcy (for a fleeting moment), Creezy and Greezy.

But it’s Creasy.

I felt SO much better once I knew for sure.

Anyway...

Creasy is an alcoholic ex-military man who’s summoned to Mexico City by an old pal (Christopher Walken), who thinks he’d make an excellent bodyguard for a friend’s daughter. Kidnappings are a daily occurrence in Latin America, so people pay a high price to ensure the safety of themselves and their loved ones. Creasy very reluctantly meets the girl’s parents (Marc Anthony, Radha Mitchell) and is promptly hired. His young charge, Pita (Dakota Fanning), wants to be friends, but the gruff, depressed Creasy rejects her efforts to play nice. Eventually, though, he caves and they become great pals as Pita’s parents take repeated out-of-town vacations.

Wait. Did I mention Mickey Rourke is in this movie? No? Sorry. He is. I rolled my eyes when his name appeared in the opening credits. Why was I not warned? To make matters worse, he plays a smarmy “lawyer” who looks like he went to the Tony Soprano School of Law and Binge Drinking. Moving on...

As the film’s trailers have explained in painstaking detail, Pita winds up kidnapped, setting in motion an intense revenge flick heavy on violence and explosive comeuppances. Creasy is a man on a mission, and he’ll stop at nothing until he’s finished. Much gunplay and bloodletting ensue.

Unfortunately, revealing any more of the story would give away key plot points, but suffice it to say that, after an impressive first 90 minutes (the movie clocks in at almost 2 1/2 hours), Man on Fire becomes kind of a one-note killing spree. Revenge movies are fine, but I thought Washington’s talents as an actor were a little underused for the latter half of the film. We don’t know much about Creasy beyond a few sketchy details – why does he drink? why is he no longer in the military? what happened? why is he suicidal? (relax, that’s not a spoiler)

Here’s this great, three-dimensional character who clearly has layers upon layers on history...but Creasy then simply becomes very Terminator-esque and that was a little disappointing. Yes, the movie made me cry (you have been warned!) more than once, but I think that was more due to little Dakota Fanning, who was absolutely remarkable.

The film has a very frenetic, hyperkinetic style that was ideal for the material, and the supporting turns from Anthony, Mitchell and even Rachel Ticotin as an earnest journalist, were solid. But the man who was on fire at the center of it all remained only a lightly scratched surface who, I suspect, had a good hour’s worth of story underneath. Maybe we’ll get to see more of what makes him tick in the inevitable DVD extras.

Still, an engaging film overall. Just a little fizzle-y by the end.