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WDon’t I love a fun game where a lone wolf takes down super powerful villains? Jack Reacher, Ethan Hunt, name origin The Night Agent – no matter how difficult it is, such competitions will be won. Hand-to-hand combat with a well-trained ninja henchman? No problem. Break into a mysterious security facility, steal something of value, then get out again? Simple. Conquering a warehouse full of men with Kalashnikovs, wearing only sunglasses and a rope, while rescuing a screaming woman? All in a day’s work.
This thread is healthy, silly fun and we enjoy it. But, Netflix’s new six-episode Man on Fire asks, what if we kept the basic idea but made it silly and fun, sad and deep? Couldn’t it be better? Well, it seems that it may not be a complete disaster, but in this case it makes life difficult for everyone, including the viewer.
The poor guy has been on fire for a while, starting with AJ Quinnell’s 1980 novel about an ex-alcoholic who is hired to protect the daughter of a wealthy Italian family, acts like a father figure to her despite his natural instincts, then embarks on a sinister revenge after the mafia kidnaps and kills him. The same thing happened in the 1987 film of the same name, directed by Scott Glenn, John Creasy. In the 2004 adaptation, starring Denzel Washington, Creasy was a former CIA operative; the place was moved to Mexico City and the child survived.
In 2026, Creasy isn’t on the booze, but he’s concerned about a special mission that went wrong years ago. Post-traumatic stress disorder has left her unemployed, lonely and so depressed that she attempts suicide the moment we meet her. A kind friend steps in and invites him to Rio de Janeiro to resume his work. In this story, the friend’s daughter, Poe (Billie Boullet), becomes Creasy’s emotional salvation; he’s a young adult not a kid and he’s with Creasy as he goes after the bad guys whose bomb killed his family. But the bones of the story are the same. Troubled boy, brooding daughter, revenge plot, chance at redemption.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is the new Creasy – and his presence is terrifying. He has the required physicality, combined with a calmness in his movements and an economy in his movements that make him a reliable figure to not miss a punch. Although his Creasy is unmovable, he is not unmovable. The agony of the past is established by Abdul-Mateen in every line; The actions of the actors show that they have to leave the classic comic books (they have been there before AquamanThe guards are Wonder Man) and review the direct play.
To some extent, that’s what Man on Fire asks him to do, since it’s not a non-stop game: he’s always looking for extended scenes about Creasy’s restlessness or Poe’s sadness. Sometimes the combination is powerful, especially when Creasy asks a bad guy for information and we believe he has it in him to do bad things. In the opening scene with a pig-tied foot soldier sitting on vital intel, our dad’s clever use of a car battery will have you shivering, shivering and shaking.
There’s a good reason, however, that fans of the unstoppable avengers take the dark side of their protagonist for granted, or minimize it with gags. It means they can get away with parts that are, frankly, ridiculous. Despite his slow pace, Man on Fire still has Creasy driving a car on a runway and jumping from it, through the air with machine guns, into a flying plane, before disarming the assassin who is at ease in the building and ending up taking off on his own instead of the slain pilots. It’s still funny; he just looks angry while doing it.
As his mission takes him to the Rio favelas and to the slums where the big bosses hang out, Creasy gradually discovers a group of outlaws whose skills are not up to snuff and he’ll need to outdo himself in order to succeed. He looks like a light-hearted heist caper, but – as he helps Creasy overcome impossible odds by breaking into a maximum-security prison and then a hospital – he’s forced to keep straight faces. The intensity of Man on Fire is hard to imagine.
