Man on Fire - 05/08/04

Written by: A.J. Quinnell (novel), Brian Helgeland (script)

Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Marc Anthony, Radha Mitchell, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Giannini

Official Site

I'm a huge fan of Tony Scott. I think he's a great director. Not to be confused with a genius director... there are only a handful of those, in my opinion... but 'great' directors aren't so easy to come by, either.

My definition of a great director is someone who has a firm grip on what is entertaining, has a style that is visually pleasing and has an ability to direct actors well. He can tell the difference between good scripts and great ones. His style changes, but doesn't completely re-invent himself to the point where you cannot tell it's his work...

Actually, there aren't too many of these 'great' directors either.

You can tell a Tony Scott movie from a mile away. The film is slick looking, the action is intense, and you get great performances out of the actors. Scott has had a career of hits, some of them making the number one spot for that year... the majority of them all big moneymakers.

I'll give you the rundown here, because I think it's important to show his previous work:

The Hunger - 1983
Top Gun - 1986 (biggest money maker of the year)
Beverly Hills Cop II - 1987 (3rd biggest money maker of the year)
Revenge - 1990
Days of Thunder - 1990
The Last Boy Scout - 1991
True Romance - 1993
Crimson Tide - 1995
The Fan - 1996
Enemy of the State - 1998
Spy Game - 2001

He's also produced films, including Clay Pigeons and also The Hire films from BMW.

This is a pretty impressive list, I must say. I've been a fan of Scott's for a while now, and I think it's pretty great that he isn't riding on the coattails of his brother Ridley. The two have created their own production company called Scott Free and are working on a few films in the near future. One of them is George Romero's newest zombie film Diamond Dead... should be very interesting.

Man on Fire is a remake from the 1987 film of the same name. Sergio Donati wrote that script, whose most other notable work was the story for Raw Deal. The film starred Scott Glenn, Joe Pesci, Brooke Adams and Jonathan Pryce. It was directed by Elie Chouraqui who continues to direct mostly in France.

This is an interesting film to update/remake. I can't say that seventeen years is a long enough time to update a film or not... it's not as ridiculous as, say remaking a film that's only four years old, as they did with Insomnia.

First off, Brian Helgeland. I'm a huge fan of his work. I loved his adaptation of Payback (which he wrote and directed) and L.A. Confidential. I enjoyed Conspiracy Theory and the idea behind The Postman. I haven't much enjoyed anything else of his, especially his last film The Order. A Knight's Tale is mindless fun... but certainly not in the same league as his other work.

Helgeland has also written the two adaptations of Clint Eastwood's two latest features, Blood Work and Mystic River. Helgeland is one of those great adaptation writers, such as Steve Kloves. He's true to the stories, the characters. I will continue to look forward to his work.

The cast is perfect as well. Denzel and Walken had perfect chemistry in their respective roles. Marc Anthony and Radha Mitchell were very good together as well... I wasn't expecting much from Anthony, but he didn't do a bad job.

Denzel Washington is one of my favorite actors. I've enjoyed his work thoroughly since Glory. I thought his breakthrough role came in the guise of Russell Mulcahy's follow-up to Highlander, Ricochet. He's phenomenal in this role, and I think it really showed everyone how great an actor he can be. Not just in action, but in a complex role that demands a number of emotions and personality conflicts.

Washington has worked with Scott before, on Crimson Tide... but the two had parted ways since. Eight years later they would meet by chance, and Scott would take Washington into consideration for the role of Creasy.

Dakota Fanning is just a brilliant child actress. She's really unbelievable in this role. I did not see her in I Am Sam, but it seems that that was the film that Scott had seen to decide to bring her in.

Giancarlo Giannini is just great. I loved his work in Hannibal... I thought he was just incredible in that film, and was very happy to see him pop up in this one. He's got such a presence and a great personality. His relationship with Rachel Ticotin in the film is pretty much seamless. They both did great jobs.

One thing that I noted right off was one of the most perfect uses of a song in film that I've seen in a long time. There's a fantastic scene in this film that is highlighted by Nine Inch Nails song "The Mark Has Been Made." Man, I'll tell you what... that song, segues perfectly into such a great scene... I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Just wonderful.

Cinematographer Paul Cameron has been working on films since 1988. IMDB has him listed as a DP, not assistant, not second unit... he's worked in the DP position in all of his films. One of his first 'mainstream' films is The Last Supper. I'd never heard of it before I checked... stars Cameron Diaz, Ron Pearlman, Bill Paxton... anyone ever heard of this? Well... anyway, it slipped under radar, but he got to shoot Gone in Sixty Seconds for Dominic Sena and Jerry Bruckheimer the year after. A sweet gig... following it up with Swordfish. Not too shabby. He got to work next with Scott on his directing of The Hire: Beat the Devil. From there, the two worked on this film.

Cameron is working on Collateral for Michael Mann, coming out this year. His work was pretty damned good in this film, though I'm a little surprised that Scott didn't continue to work with Daniel Mindel, who the two have worked with on a number of features... not that I'm complaining. You can see a slight difference in Scott's work with this picture... can't say that's specifically has to do with the change in DP, but it might have something.

Something HUGE that Scott decided to work on in this film was editing. Man, there were moments I thought I was going to be sea-sick. I can't tell if this is the type of mid-life crisis that people get... instead of sticking with what has been working for twenty years, you go and change something to keep up with this MTV type era we're stuck in... I don't know. I'd say that the majority of the time, the editing worked very well. Other times, I wanted to see the entire segment, uncut, un-messed with.

I cannot say that it was a change in editor, because Christian Wagner has been working with Scott for quite some time. Wagner has edited some pretty incredible action films over the last few years, including the latest segment of James Bond, Die Another Day, Mission: Impossible II, The Negotiator, Face/Off and Bad Boys. A pretty impressive list of successful movies.

The last thing I'm going to mention is subtitles. Scott and company decided to do something radically different with their subtitles in this film, and I was very impressed by it. I was always wondering why people didn't utilize subtitles in a more interesting and dynamic way. I can't say that this is THE way that they should be done, but this is A way... and I was impressed that they had the subtitles add to the scenes in their own way. When you see it, you'll understand what I mean.

All in all, this is a very well acted, well written and well directed film. I was very impressed, leaving the theater. I'm a big fan of Tony Scott, and he didn't let down, again.