Tony Scott returns to Denzel Washington as his leading man, who will remain his leading man in three out of his four remaining films. I've always wondered about their connection and if it was just a professional one or if their relationship was deeply personal as well. Either way, you can see why Tony Scott was metaphorically married to Mr. Washington after this film. “Man on Fire” is Scott's most complex character study (with the possible exception of “Domino,” yet to come) and he doesn't hold back on the dark places he goes with Denzel's character.
You can see Scott employ some of the visual tactics began in “The Fan” with Robert DeNiro's character's descent into madness. Washington's Creasy is of equally scorched-earth caliber, but with a motive driven by love. Perhaps casting Denzel Washington as Creasy was the best way to make the character not only sympathetic, but likable. A great deal is spent on developing the relationship between Creasy and Pita, the young girl he's hired to protect. For the first 45 minutes of the movie, that story arc itself makes for a sufficiently entertaining film. That's what makes Pita's kidnapping so devastating and why Creasy's unrelenting quest for revenge has us fully on board.
The camera twitches and flashes in the moments Creasy's rage is inflamed, making scenes already unsettling even more so. As Creasy works his way up the chain of bad guys, his tactics of torture, humiliation, and execution escalate as well. The tension is a mixture of urgency for Creasy to have his vengeance seen to completion as well as our borderline sympathy for the villains he zealously exterminates. In some cases, this style of filmmaking overwhelms the viewer's experience, but I think that may actually be the point. This film is not meant to be endured comfortably.
Tony Scott's somewhat superfluous use of subtitles can be distracting at times (particularly when it's dictation of English dialogue versus a translation of Spanish). Since the film has a lot of Spanish in it, he didn't want all of that conversation merely superimposed over the bottom of the screen, so he made it flow through the shots as it's spoken. I suppose he liked it so much, he didn't want the English-speaking scenes to feel neglected. I didn't care for it the first time I saw the film, but I've gotten used to it in subsequent viewings and have just accepted it as appropriate emphasis in the scenes it appears. Scott uses a similar tactic in the aforementioned “Domino” with much better effect, so it's good he had this movie to experiment with. Much like he had the love-fueled rampage set in Mexico “Revenge” to experiment with before making this amped-up version of a similar formula.
Tony Scott had originally wanted this to be the follow-up piece to his debut film “The Hunger” and it's interesting he had such perseverance to the project to see it through some 20 years later. Maybe that's what makes Creasy's fixation on his mission so believable. In that context, the scene where Creasy attempts suicide is all the more haunting given Tony Scott killed himself less than 10 years later. Perhaps Creasy's demons are not too far off from Tony Scott's and as such, it could be said Tony Scott effectively lives on in this film. I don't think Tony Scott would mind being remembered for “Man on Fire” given how honest it is.
