Man On Fire (2004)
The most impressive recent release was Tony Scott’s Man On Fire, which had a UK cinema release but also came out simultaneously on R1 DVD.
Denzel Washington stars as a bodyguard charged with minding Dakota Fanning in Mexico City. Things go badly wrong, leaving Washington out to exact some sort of revenge and gain personal redemption for his past sins.
The style owes a bit to City of God, nicks a bit of the score from Gladiator, but is generally a catalogue of every trick in the book, and your attitude to the movie will reflect how you feel about being emotionally beaten up for two and a half hours.
Washington and Fanning are great as always, and you’ve got Christopher Walken and Mickey Rourke in supporting roles. Rourke seems to be turning into William Shatner in his old age, and Walken tries to distract you from some horribly clunky dialogue by eating while he talks.
If you can stomach some extreme bits of close-up violence, then this is exciting, moving and a staggering demonstration of technique, and gets my vote as the best movie of 2004.
Rating: 
[imdb]0328107[/imdb]
