The problem with Man on Fire isn't that it's sick and epileptic, but rather that it gradually reveals itself as invested in the worst instincts of cultural empiricism, casting women alternately as victims and fonts of sexual healing while locating a lone virile black man as hired help at the behest of a rich white woman for the protection of her lily-white daughter. "Being black, does it work for you or against you?" he's asked, and it's a good question. Man on Fire is Mandingo re-imagined for our post-9/11 wonderland, packed with a disturbing race and class dialogue and an equally disturbing level of violence presented in as populist a way as possible for easy digestion and facile rabble-rousing. If it weren't ultimately so cowardly (of the three rumoured endings, I'm wagering the one that survived is the middle porridge), it'd be a counter-cultural camp classic.

Denzel Washington is tremendous as the abovementioned black guy, Creasy, who warns his new employer Samuel (Marc Anthony)--in one of the film's many moments of mordant levity--that because his reflexes have been dulled by drink, should professionals come for Samuel's daughter, Pita (Dakota Fanning), he can only guarantee the bargain basement protection for which bankrupt spoiler Samuel has paid. In no time, Man on Fire has established its world as one in which Marc Anthony can have a daughter who looks like Dakota Fanning, in which Denzel Washington is a drunkard who comes cheap (soon to be a psychotically vengeful drunkard--see also: The Punisher), and in which if you're of colour, you're either a meat bag, irredeemably corrupt (the two positive Mexican characters are corrupt on the side of "good" killin'), or the catalyst through your death of a "proper" family unit. Consider that by the close, there's a nuclear family restored consisting of a wealthy older white man (Christopher Walken), a beautiful, rich, young white woman (Radha Mitchell), and said lily-white little girl. Every Mexican has been summarily executed (save the "good" Mexicans, who just return to their jobs facilitating criminal sociopaths and performing illegal Patriot Act invasions of privacy), and the black guy bought at a bargain has given his life for the good of the comfortably entrenched foreign bourgeoisie.

So the inevitably unthinkable happens a little later than expected (there's time in Man on Fire's bloated 145-minute duration for an underdog sports intrigue), and Pita is captured and presumed dead (actually dead in one unused ending, I'm guessing), sending Creasy on a sadistic murder spree that includes cutting off a guy's fingers and shoving a pound of plastic explosive up another unfortunate's rectum. Uncompromising, for sure, and I have no problem with films that have big brass ones, but what troubles me is the extent to which the film tries to mediate its violence with scenes of Creasy absolving himself in ritualistic baptismal immersions, of the baddies all being swarthy Mexican caricatures (and Mickey Rourke), and of that lingering, disquieting realization that what the film boils down to is a white ultra-conservative Christian's medieval wet dream of world order and fiery justice. It's the racist flag-waving rah-rah of The Alamo mixed with the sanctified cruelty of The Passion of the Christ--the spoilers-as-victim complex that infects certain infantile worldviews in such a way as to corrupt every relationship that the United States has in the world community.

Think about the palatial homes inhabited by the industrialist heroes of Man on Fire (Walken and Anthony, and a few anonymous Japanese). Now compare them to the laundry-decorated hovels that are the demesne of its murderous peasant class. Consider the single child responsibility of the beautiful rich white woman and the numerous offspring (with one on the way, the trend of menacing pregnant women in film continues) shepherded by the evil Mexican woman, among the multifarious ways in which the picture marginalizes and stereotypes poverty and every citizen south of El Paso. Suggesting that every institution in Mexico is hopelessly corrupt may be a case of pots calling kettles black, and a closing title card thanking Mexico City as a "very special place" reeks of either insincerity, cynicism, or hopeless Pollyannaism. After the mayhem depicted in Man on Fire, I'm guessing that not many are scrambling to book their family vacations there. I'd offer that there probably won't be another film more revealing of the seething core of terror, wrath, and provincialism in our America as Man on Fire, except that every week finds more proof that the watchtowers are burning, and that no one suspects watchmen.-Walter Chaw

2.35:1 DVD capture: Denzel Washington in Man on Fire

Fox releases Man on Fire on DVD in competing widescreen and fullscreen editions. We received the former for review, an A/V presentation so close to perfect that reviewing it becomes monotonous. Hovering at a bitrate between 7 and 10 mbps throughout, the 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer deftly handles variations in film stock, and the depth of detail is nothing short of astonishing. Though luminosity could be a little stronger (it may sound like sad horndoggery, but I recall Radha Mitchell's gratuitous Skivvies shot looking more lambent at the multiplex), it's nothing that jeopardizes our ability to read the image. Just as impressive is the DTS version of the 5.1 mix, which is not only ear-splittingly loud but creative, too, especially in its use of the split-surrounds. No one scene stands out for demo purposes as no one scene has been left decaffeinated by the sound engineers--and the thrum of Harry Gregson-Williams' score is often as foundation-threatening as the parade of gunshots and explosions. (The Dolby Digital alternative is good but much less transparent.)

Tony Scott flies solo in the first of two commentary tracks, the second of which groups producer Lucas Foster, screenwriter Brian Helgeland, and actress Dakota Fanning, who keep each other occupied planning an album to launch Fanning's singing career (I think--I hope--it's a joke, as her off-key rendition of Toni Basil's "Mickey" does the original no favours) and identifying unplanned ironies in Man on Fire's execution, such as the fluke of Christopher Walken's final line of dialogue being "I don't have anything else to say." (The almost subversive presence of Fanning here speaks for itself.) When Scott himself is 'on fire,' he reveals that he initially intended to make the picture in Italy right after The Hunger with Marlon Brando in the lead; he's also a tad more xenophobic than I think he realizes in his reflections on the film's Mexico City locations. A Fox reel favouring The Day After Tomorrow, I, Robot, and Alien Vs. Predator precedes the main menu while trailers for Taxi and Hide and Seek (another adult-themed Fanning vehicle), concealed beneath the heading "Inside Look," round out the platter.-Bill Chambers

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