*** Official MAN ON FIRE Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[chris winters]

I read the book after seeing the film. It is quite different, but then not really. Creasy is a white guy, ex french foreign legion, big, and the whole thing takes place in Italy. His buddy , the christopher walken character in th movie is younger then him, and is a widower. The book it more brutal is some regards.

The little girl is raped multiple times, and killed. but unlike the movie she stays dead.


The book takes it slower, with Creasy taking more time to train after being injured, and hanging out outside the city. He has a love affair etc...then comes back when hes tip-top again to exact his revenge. Things are generally better eplained, as to tactics etc...

Overall a good read, I would say the movie handled the pre-kidnapping stuff better, and the book the after kidnapping stuff was better.

 

[ChrisBEA]

I just posted a review of this on my blog:
http://draven99.blogspot.com

 

[Holadem]

I liked the movie, :star::star::star:.

I am a fan of Tony Scott. Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Games are all models of excellence in the action genre. But he may have gone overboard this time with his style. Lots of unecessary, pointless "tricks". Sometimes, I wonder why this guy is given such a break from Michael Bay haters.

agreed! What Zimmer lost by staying away from his usual orchestral bombastic scores (opting instead for a more ethnic style), she more than made up for by ripping off hear previous work.

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H

 

[David Tolsky]

(Some spoilers ahead, use caution in your reading)...ends up being just "Okay". I really thought this movie had potential. Decent story, great locations, great lead actor and good performances all around. So what's with this MTV filmmaking mentality that we get knocked over the head with? I'm referring to the sequences where the film is sped up and even blurred in places. Maybe I'm alone in my thinking here but these so called techniques just occurred too often in this movie to take it seriously. Which is too bad because I thought the story was decent and the acting for the most part was good. Also in the second half of the movie, when Denzel actually goes to work, did he suddenly lose his drinking habit? It seemed to magically dissappear. Also, did you think it was explained enough how Denzel's character became such a skilled assasin? I know we were shown a very brief shot of his resume and given several verbal warnings from Christopher Walken, doing his best Richard Crenna in "First Blood". For that matter, how many times in movies have we heard an "expert" describe how nobody can beat this killing machine? That got a little old hat for me. Still, there was a lot to like about this movie despite some obvious flaws. What did you think?

 

[Alex Spindler]

It actually happens quite gradually, culminating I believe after he and Pita exchange words through their windows that he grabs his bottle and, spurred undoubtedly by Pita awakening the feeling of hope and happiness, he puts it down and picks up a bible. That's the part where he turns away from drinking. I would also suggest that its the reason he was able to identify and kill as many as he did during the kidnapping, as otherwise his skills would have been impaired.


As to his background, I thought it was done well enough abstractly, and I must confess that I wasn't quite prepared for his obvious skill at extracting information from unwilling participants. Based on the previews, I had his pegged as your garden variety rambo mercenary, but I think there was some rogue counterterrorism (shades of Jack Bauer) in his past.

I quite loved the movie, and a part of it was how Scott restrained from using the flashy effects until things get out of control. It helped, for me anyway, to enjoy the feeling of calm he grows to enjoy and then the chaos he descends back into. But, I'm again unapologetically a fan of the film.

 

[Holadem]

BTW, what the hell was Saddam Hussein doing in this flick?

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H

 

[David Preston]

I hope this is the right place to post this. I don't have the movie with me now I let someone borrow it. Who's music is it that is played a few times in the movie. It is the slow music they play a few times briefly in the movie then a little more at the end. It kinda sounds like Enya. Can someone help me out? Thanks

 

[Nick Sievers]

The Official Discussion Thread is located HERE.

I've only seen it once but they did use some old Nine Inch Nails music but since you said it sounds like Enya I doubt i'm thinking of the same piece.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Lisa Gerrard, of Dead Can Dance and Gladiator (and Whale Rider, and The Insider, and MI:2) fame.

Unbelievably beautiful voice,
Chuck

 

[Michael Reuben]

David Preston's thread has been merged into it. Previous posts answer his question.

M.

 

[BobbyPerry]

I just got the movie from Netflix. Is it gonna be worth my time? Should I watch it alone or with someone?

 

[David Preston]

Does Lisa Gerrard have a CD out with this music on it? Thanks

 

[David Preston]

Thanks for merging my post. I did a search for Man on Fire but couldn't get anything. I then went a few pages back still nothing. I see why now the last post was in May.

 

[Scott L]

Bobby- I loved it. I saw it with lotsa of friends and it was a fun movie. Tony Scott edits can induce vomiting sometimes but it worked well for this film. Only cheesy scenario imo is the ending. WAYYYYY to dramatic for an action flick.

 

[James T]

I sort of liked it. Once the action started, I thought of Jack Bauer in the last episode of season One when he thinks his family is dead. But after reading the Atticus Kodiak novels in which he is a bodyguard, I can't help but think Creasey was way too sloppy to be a bodyguard.

I may read the book, since Chris said it's a bit differnt.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Finally got around to watching this yesterday. Thanks, Fox -- I'm glad it was a freebie!

Others have commented on the Tony Scott camera tricks, which got very annoying after a while. (I find him to be hit-or-miss as a director.) They didn't add much, and mainly served to drag out an already overly long film. There were a few gratuitous slow-motion shots as well that didn't help the pacing.

The comic-book style animated subtitles that randomly appeared during the film would have been appropriate for Spiderman or Daredevil, but in a film as dark as this, that otherwise played completely straight, they were idiotic.

The film spends nearly an hour telling us "sweet little girl cracks the defenses of cold-hearted, alcoholic warrior dude and they form a bond." Seriously, I know Scott didn't want to make their bond form too suddenly, but this was way overboard. This is something we've all seen before; he didn't need to take that long with it. Why do we need to linger so much on the swimming subplot? There's nothing inherently wrong with an easy pace or with lingering shots, but they need to have a purpose. This is at heart an action flick dragged down by shallow drama more than it is a real drama with action in it. Only one real relationship is developed, and it's such a cliche, involving characters that we all know already, that there's no reason for it to drag on so long. This is a 90-minute movie squeezed into 145 minutes.

The girl turning up alive at the end was really irritating. At first, I figured that she wasn't really dead. As time went on, however, it became more and more implausible. Why would the kidnapper hang onto her for so long without trying to get another ransom? It made no sense. (Also, it dulled the righteousness of all the brutal revenge killings that led up to it, not to mention the father's murder-suicide.)

The end -- "I'll trade her life for yours." "OK, sure!" What exactly does that mean? Why do they trust each other? This just doesn't stand up to the slightest logical analysis. Why would Creasy give himself up to the baddies, leaving the girl and her mother completely without protection? This could have been played in a much more believable way.

Again, at the end -- Denzel takes a gunshot to the chest at point-blank range and is completely unaffected by it until the exact moment at which the plot requires him to weaken, which is quite a long time later. Good grief!

On the other hand, I didn't mind the coda. It was good to at least have some resolution for the Gianini character, if not for the reporter character. Otherwise they just came and went as the plot needed them. I'm glad it went somewhere with at least one of them.

This film just didn't suspend my disbelief. A movie has to at least stay true within itself to do that successfully, but I found myself asking "why?" far too many times.