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Man on Fire

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Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States · 2004
Rated R · 2h 26m
Director Tony Scott
Starring Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Radha Mitchell
Genre Action, Drama, Thriller

ex-C.I.A agent John Creasy finds new purpose as a bodyguard of a young girl in Mexico City. Turning away from alcohol and towards faith, things look to be improving in Creasy's life before his charge is kidnapped. Creasy unleashes his fury on the kidnappers, with violent results.

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What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

50

L.A. Weekly by John Patterson

A schizophrenic outing from habitually hysterical director Tony Scott (True Romance, The Fan), Man on Fire is a movie of two unreconcilable halves.

50

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Despite its high craft level and Washington's participation in it, this movie's showy violence is finally as deadening as the over-emphatic violence in these kinds of films generally is.

60

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

The film is always watchable, and the confrontations contain undeniable edgy excitement. But even if this weren't a remake, it would be a remake. Hollywood filmmakers have fished these waters so thoroughly that it's virtually impossible to land a big catch.

25

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

The movie's mortal failing is echoed in the religious medal Pita gives Creasy in a gift of innocent, uplifting love: Finding heft or coherence within all the lugubrious agitation is a lost cause worthy of St. Jude.

50

TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh

Scott swaddles this fundamentally straightforward revenge story in a jumble of bleary freeze frames, random changes of color saturation and film stock, jump cuts and stuttering montages, splashing text from some menacing word soup onto the resulting collage of chicly disturbing images.

50

New York Post by Megan Lehmann

Where Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" radiates freshness and vigor, Man on Fire feels vaguely like something left over from the 1980s, when action heroes were one-note tough guys methodically picking off baddies.

63

Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

Man on Fire, which starts off as a good example of super-glitz moviemaking, gradually turns into a movie on fire -- another helter-skelter, big-studio spending spree. Too bad. It could use a lot more of Walken, Fanning and some more honest drama.

60

Variety by Todd McCarthy

One of the more absorbing and palatable entries in the rather disreputable "Death Wish"-style self-appointed vigilante sub-genre.

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