Man On Fire

[Chief Rum]

I just rented and watched this movie, because when it came out I thought it might be good and it got good reviews.

Still, it was more of a toss on after getting The Village and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (planning to watch the latter tonight).

So I was pleasantly surprised that this Denzel flick is one very powerful and emotional film. It's also brutally violent, but I thought it was extremely well done and felt "real" (which is hard to do for this sort of movie, because it comes down to a shoot-em-up sorta thing).

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else had caught this and what they thought of it.

CR

[kingfc22]

I really enjoyed the movie and yes it is very brutal at times.

[FBPro]

Yes, quite a good flick. Saw it at the theatre but still enjoyed it.

[Joe]

yeah, two thumbs up on that one

[Ragone]

Figured this was a thread about Deion Branch :)

[Qwikshot]

yeah, two thumbs up on that one
"I wish...I wish you had more time."

This movie wasn't that great. In fact, it's a remake. Scott Glenn was in the original.

I don't get how they could say Mexico City is a beautiful place when they make it out to be a den of corruption and violence.

Lots of stereotypical characters here, and cliche-ridden.

Walken is good as usual.

And what the hell was up with the ending when they have an "In Memoriam", what is this a true story?

I think for an action movie it's okay, but I just felt the plot had been done to death...

On a side note, I watched "Lone Wolf McQuade", now that's a masterpiece in unintentional comedy.

[Sun Tzu]

I thought it was pretty good. Not as awesome as some of my buddies made it out to be when they mentioned it to me. I made sure to watch it with no expectations though. On a scale of 1-10 I'd give it a high 6.

[Chief Rum]

Yeah, Qwikshot, I discovered most of that after looking around to see if the story was real (given the "hints" at the end).

I found out about the Scott Glenn movie, and that that was based on a book written about a similar situation in the 70s in Italy. Not sure how much of it was true from real life-->book-->first movie--->Man on Fire, but clearly the specifiics (Mexico, the date, John Creasy, etc.) didn't actually exist as represented. Whatever they were copied from, though, for all I know might be reasonably accurate.

Personally, I have never understood what the big gripe is about stereotypical characters. For one thing, there is a reason why characters like this exist--because there are generally people like that who actually exist. I'm not talking super heroes, but regular people commonly represented in these things (criminals, cops, elite soldiers, etc.). Sure, no soldier out there is likely exactly like Arnold in The Predator, but I would bet there are some serious badass muthaf... in the special forces, and they can do a lot of stuff you see in these movies.

So I have learned to ignore stuff like this and just enjoy the movie as the entertainment it's meant to be, and not worry about how accurate a stereotype is, or that they come across that way.

CR

P.S. I thought the tahnking of Mexico City and calling ti a beautiful place was pretty funny, too, in retrospect.

[PilotMan]

I liked the movie, but I was dissapointed that there wasn't more brutal violence. It was a little soft and I wanted more ass kicking.

[BigPapi]

Just re-watched this movie again last night.....Definitely in my top 10- Denzel played this perfectly IMO. Sure it's a bit stereotypical, but there are few movies I've enjoyed more, however, than this one for dishing out vigilante justice. Waffling about the political correctness of the film definitely wasn't a subject of much debate here....And for as outlandish as the general theme was, the movie never seemed beyond plausible.

One other thing that really struck was how powerful and influential the movie's musical score was on me- almost in every scene. Lot's of classic lines in here as well; I love Walken's "Creasy's art is death....And he's about to paint his masterpiece"

[DaddyTorgo]

still never seen this movie