'Man on Fire' adds excitement in '04 remake

Denzel Washington gets intense as a bodyguard turned vigilante.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
"Man on Fire" might have been junk in 1987, but at 93 minutes, it was at least mercifully brief garbage. The purposefully and sumptuously inflated remake of the same title with two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington is practically an hour longer, yet tells the same basic story.
Go figure.
In "Man on Fire" 2004, Washington races through eye-popping vistas in Mexico City like, well, a man on fire. (The fast runner in '87 was Scott Glenn.) Washington practically implodes on the screen as an alcoholic ex-CIA operative who winds up south of the border -- hey, maybe he likes tequila -- and takes a job as bodyguard to a lonely little rich girl (Dakota Fanning from "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat" and "Uptown Girls").
After low-key roles, and low-energy performances, in "Out of Time" and "Antwone Fisher," Washington ratchets up the intensity level and proves why he's one of our very best actors.
The story
John Creasy, Washington's emotionally shut-down loner, is a classic film-noir hero. A man of few words and long, drawn-out silences, the brooding Creasy lets Fanning's Pinta tear down the walls encircling his cold, cold heart after taking on the job as her protector. Because Mexico City is experiencing a rash of kidnappings -- 24 in one week alone -- her wealthy parents, Samuel (recording star Marc Anthony) and Lisa (Radha Mitchell, last seen as Colin Farrell's wife in "Phone Booth"), have hired Creasy to keep an eye on their increasingly vulnerable 9-year-old daughter.
Blossoming in the company of this precocious girl, Creasy stops hitting the sauce, begins helping Pinta with her homework and even volunteers to coach her for an upcoming swimming meet. More than just his job, Pinta becomes Creasy's entire life.
When she's snatched from him in broad daylight -- a doozy of a scene that'll make your head spin -- this tough guy with a heart of mush doesn't just get mad, he gets even. Like The Bride in "Kill Bill" or Frank Castle of "The Punisher," Creasy transforms himself into an avenging angel of biblical proportions. As Creasy pal Rayburn (Christopher Walken in a rare nice-guy role) says in the film's most quotable line of dialogue, "His art is death, and he's about to paint his masterpiece."
Direction and writing
Director Tony Scott ("Crimson Tide," "Enemy of the State") gives this standard vigilante yarn the weight and heft of a true action epic. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland ("Mystic River," "L.A. Confidential") certainly helps in that regard, providing a script layered with psychological nuance and the sort of deft plot twists and turns you'll never see coming.
Scott and cinematographer Paul Cameron get great scenic mileage out of their exotic location, too, making the city as integral to the drama as any of the flesh-and-blood characters. Cameron's jazzy, hyped-up visuals owe an immense debt to the impressionistic, almost hallucinatory imagery of such recent Spanish-language art-house hits as "Amores Perros" and "City of God."
Did the filmmakers really need almost two and a half hours to tell this particular story? Maybe not. But if you're like me, you'll be too busy catching your breath to notice or even care.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.