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"Man on Fire" (2004) - why do I like a roman à clef

I have watched “Man on Fire” (2004) many times. If it is on or I see it available, I will watch it. I think I got some free movies on Vudu once and bought a copy (although I no longer have any idea how to get to that account). I really like this movie.

Denzel Washington is a large part of my enjoyment. In my opinion, he may be our greatest actor*. His portrayal of the tortured warrior, whose heart is broken by a child, and set on a path for vengeance is fantastic. I cry everytime they are reunited at the end. As for the rest of the cast - Dakota Fanning, Chris Walken, and Giancarlo Giannini are superb. The rest of them carry their parts well enough. Mexico City plays a very nice role. When you lay on Tony Scott’s directing + Paul Cameron cinematography + Christian Wagner editing + the sound design, you get a VERY tense and violent thriller. The music cues are really great.


While John Creasy (Denzel’s part) is a trope of story writing, in terms of a roman à clef, the Sanchez brothers (the kidnappers) are based on real people. I am struck that Hollywood can not write a character worse than human beings can produce. These two spent 2 years kidnapping at least 18 people in Mexico City, cutting off their ears, and collecting $40M USD in ransom. They have spent 25 years of their 40 year sentence in prison so far. I think Creasy’s behavior is a reasonable stand in for the approach that the Mexican Federal Police used to apprehend them. As a result, they may be resentenced soon due to the methods used.



*I wish he and Meryl Streep would do more work together.

Their performance in “The Manchurian Candidate” from the same year is the only one I can find. It is blah - and I blame Demme & the screenwriter for that. Like “Man on Fire”, they had an excellent cast, a book and an excellent original film to base it on. And with that, they produced a film which is decidedly lackluster. It is cool that Roger Corman did some acting in it though.

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