Man On Fire

By Mal -

8 out of 10

What a relief to get back to a real film after watching AVP-R. This one even had a plot and proper character development. Man On Fire follows former mercenary, Creasy (Denzel Washington), struggling to find meaning in his life, now working as a private bodyguard. That meaning comes in the form of a young girl name Lupita (Dakota Fanning) whom he's assigned to protect. Pass the sick bag? No.

As their friendship grows throughout the first hour or so, the film threatens to wander out of heart-warming and into schmaltz, but then everything's turned on its head as she's kidnapped. The rest of the film takes on an incredibly purposeful air as he sets out to exact revenge on the kidnappers.

Despite this separation of themes being so distinct, the film overall felt surprisingly well balanced. All actors gave excellent performances, but the two leads in particular worked very well together. My only complaints were one or two out-of-character or unrealistic moments, but those gripes pale when compared to the positives here. Definitely worth renting. :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Downfall

By -
7 out of 10 Hitler, eh, he was crackers, wasn't he, or was he? This film sets about trying to get the bottom of this question, detailing the last few hours of his life in his bunker in Berlin as the red army approached. The film, some would say rather controversially, answers the question early on with his pie fight with Himler coming as the starting credits fade. What follows is a romp through the final desperate hours of a ridiculous regime as they all, but their leader, seem to have grasped the fact that they’re buggered. The film has many memorable and chilling scenes, such as Dr Goebbels’ wife killing her own children rather than letting them fall into Communist hands. And the bit where Hitler’s dog is given cyanide for a laugh, with some superb acting by the dog. Anyway, if you’re interested in the madness of what went on in that bunker in Hitler’s last hours, this is for you. I would, however, also recommend Das Bunker und Laughs for a very different take on matt
Read more

The Brothers Grimm

By -
5 out of 10 On the face of it The Brothers Grimm is a perfect match for the dark surrealism of Terry Gilliam . However it fails to live up to its potential. The brothers (played by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger ) are travelling con-artists who arrive in a village with a real fairy tale curse. For a Fairy tale the cinematography is very grey and brown. There is little of the Gilliam imagination that we might have expected. Most surprising of all is that the special effects ranged from the sublime (blobby gingerbread man) to the downright awful. A scene where a CGI scarf was floating down a river was particularly derisible. At times it seems that the script is a vehicle for referencing yet another fairy tale rather than to tell the tale that the viewer is actually watching. This is a shame because when the movie does get going there are moments to enjoy.
Read more