|
Man on Fire stars Denzel Washington as John Creasy, an ex-CIA operative who is haunted by his murderous past and as a result, he drowns his memories with a bottle of Jack and a bullet. Creasy is down and out when his old friend Rayburn (Christopher Walken) helps him get a job as a bodyguard for a nine-year-old girl named Pita (Dakota Fanning). Pita and her wealthy parents, Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) and Lisa (Radha Mitchell), live in Mexico City, where kidnapping young children for ransom is more or less a daily occurrence. Often the kidnappers are quite ruthless with their victims, even when their ransom demands are met.
Creasy warms up to Pita and the pair become very close but not surprisingly, the young girl is eventually kidnapped. Unfortunately, the kidnappers do not realize with whom they are dealing. They are dealing with a guy who has a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Everest and now they have woken up a monster in Creasy and he will stop at nothing to ensure Pita's safe return. Anyone who has anything to do with the kidnappers or might have information regarding the whereabouts of Pita is in for a world of hurt. They are maimed, tortured, shot, punched out and a introduced to a few other surprises that Creasy has up his sleeve (think anal insertion).
Man on Fire is one of the better movies to have been released thus far this year and it is now available on DVD. Mind you, the movie is not for everyone as it is ultra-violent, especially once that monster inside Creasy is awoken. But it is a very compelling story at times, it is shot in a rather unique and interesting manner and it features some outstanding performances from the likes of Denzel and Dakota Fanning and strong performances from much of the supporting cast, including the always reliable Christopher Walken.
As for extras on the DVD, there are two commentaries, one by director Tony Scott and the second commentary with producer Lucas Foster, screenwriter Brian Helgeland and Dakota Fanning. Both commentaries are quite decent but if given a choice between listening to only one commentary, I would recommend Scott's. He talks in great detail and with great passion about his movie, his techniques, the look of the movie, the actors and actresses, filming in Mexico, why he shot certain scenes in certain manners and so on and so forth. It is one of the better director commentaries that I have heard in a while. Some of the interesting things he talks about? Well, he mentions that he had been trying to get this film made since the 70's and over the years offered the role of John Creasy to the late Marlon Brando (who confessed he was too fat for the role), Robert DeNiro and eventually ran into Denzel at a doctor's office (or something like that) and offered it to him. He talks about battling the studio over Denzel's beard, about the subtitles and about the violence in the movie, amongst other things. He also has a cool (well, maybe not cool) story about how they were surrounded by a gang of teenagers in a town in Mexico while scouting locations and guns were drawn, a cop and a bodyguard were beaten and it just turned out to be a big mess. Even while filming this movie in Mexico, the crew had to have bodyguards for fear of being kidnapped. Apparently, kidnapping is a real and serious problem in Mexico and some of the scenes in the movie were not far off from real life experiences.
The second commentary with Foster, Helgeland and Fanning wasn't too bad either. They too talked at great lengths about the making of the movie, the problems with the studio (who also didn't like the fact that the "bad guy" was just a voice for much of the movie) and filming in Mexico and problems that arose from filming there. Foster and Helgeland actually do a good job of keeping the young Fanning involved in the commentary by asking her questions and getting her comments, although there is one rather humorous part where Fanning is talking about how she was the only light-skinned person in one particular scene and one of the men just sort of talks over her and then she mentions it again and he talks over her again. I just got the impression that he was trying to change the subject before something inappropriate was said, although I could be wrong. I found it humorous. Fanning also seems to have that fake Hollywood laugh working in high gear but I won't pick on her too much since she's just a kid.
The DVD also includes a misleading feature called "Inside Look", which is misleading in that it is not an actual inside look at "Man on Fire" but a look at other upcoming projects from Fox. To be specific, it includes a trailer for a movie called "Hide and Seek", starring Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning and the trailer and a behind the scenes look at the movie "Taxi", which stars Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah.
Overall, I would say that Man on Fire is a very good movie that is worth your hard-earned dollars, even though the DVD is rather skimpy on the extras. The movie features some strong performances, an almost gut-wrenching story and some interesting twists and turns, although it might not be a good movie to encourage tourism in Mexico, that's for sure. As I said earlier, it is one of the better movies that has been released thus far this year and is definitely worth checking out if you haven't already done so.
|
