Man on Fire

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Man on Fire, with a best-ever Denzel Washington, is the first (nonreligious) sure thing to hit the multiplex this year.

Empire Ian Freer

By no means perfect - a twist in the tale overextends its already lengthy running time - but it is terrific fun.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The dead-serious Man on Fire awakens a genuine sense of bloodlust in the viewer. This is a slick, big-budget, A-list production designed to stoke our basest impulses -- to make us long for, and cheer at, bloody, merciless vengeance.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

For what Man on Fire delivers, it's worth enduring Scott's hyperkinetic visual techniques.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's resolutely grim and rather predictable but very compelling, and it offers a commanding star vehicle for Denzel Washington.

Slate David Edelstein

No one rises above the material, though, except for Walken, who looks pleased with the paycheck and the top-shelf tequila. As a shady lawyer, Mickey Rourke is smooth and funny, but recognizable only by his familiar purr.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Washington's stoic persona here conceals a volcanic rage, and the cast of pros--including Giancarlo Giannini, Mickey Rourke and Rachel Ticotin--support him with relish.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Ultimately more bleak and furious than most Hollywood tales of this sort. Man on Fire plays it out to the bloody end, like there’s no fire extinguisher in Mexico but for the oceans that hold its borders.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Employs superb craftsmanship and a powerful Denzel Washington performance in an attempt to elevate genre material above its natural level, but it fails. The underlying story isn't worth the effort.

USA Today Mike Clark

Not too many R-rated revenge pics depend on "Uptown Girls'" Dakota Fanning for the stronger scenes. Yet once the 10-year-old star exits the picture, Man on Fire starts blowing a lot of smoke.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Man on Fire, which starts off as a good example of super-glitz moviemaking, gradually turns into a movie on fire -- another helter-skelter, big-studio spending spree. Too bad. It could use a lot more of Walken, Fanning and some more honest drama.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The film is always watchable, and the confrontations contain undeniable edgy excitement. But even if this weren't a remake, it would be a remake. Hollywood filmmakers have fished these waters so thoroughly that it's virtually impossible to land a big catch.

Variety Todd McCarthy

One of the more absorbing and palatable entries in the rather disreputable "Death Wish"-style self-appointed vigilante sub-genre.

Village Voice David Ng

Intentional or not, Man on Fire's over-the-top evocation of Christian retribution goes a long way to making this otherwise standard revenge fantasy watchable.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The film as a whole, while possessing a kind of vicious beauty, feels as cold and as embalmed as a corpse.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

That there's moral ambiguity to his actions represents some sort of step up from the cinematic norm. Alas, Christopher Walken has very little to do as Creasy's best buddy.

Portland Oregonian Karen Karbo

Scott apparently decided it was a good idea for his subtitles -- much of the film is in Spanish -- to shimmy across the screen, to fade in and out dramatically, and in general do even more to distract us.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

If your idea of a bargain is two bad movies for the price of one, then shell out for Man on Fire. And don't fret about that incendiary title because this thing is all fuse.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Whenever the movie's point of view turns omniscient, and we're seeing events from the director's vantage point, Man on Fire becomes a blurry, shaky mess.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

On the plus side, the casting is superb - and the acting, too. Although the context is overwrought and the moviemaking over-the-top, Washington acts from the ticker out.

LA Weekly John Patterson

A schizophrenic outing from habitually hysterical director Tony Scott (True Romance, The Fan), Man on Fire is a movie of two unreconcilable halves.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Despite its high craft level and Washington's participation in it, this movie's showy violence is finally as deadening as the over-emphatic violence in these kinds of films generally is.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Where Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" radiates freshness and vigor, Man on Fire feels vaguely like something left over from the 1980s, when action heroes were one-note tough guys methodically picking off baddies.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Scott swaddles this fundamentally straightforward revenge story in a jumble of bleary freeze frames, random changes of color saturation and film stock, jump cuts and stuttering montages, splashing text from some menacing word soup onto the resulting collage of chicly disturbing images.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The first hour is sharply directed, character-driven drama that ranks with Scott's best work. Then he lapses into his usual mode - more a bombardier than an entertainer, filling the screen with sadistic violence and arbitrary plot twists. In all, a wasted opportunity.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Seriously, someone needs to stage an intervention, sit Scott down, and tell him that repeated jump cuts, slow-motion shots, and fiddling around with the exposure don’t enhance the viewing experience.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It is a good hour too long, although it does boast Christopher Walken.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Scott's latest exercise in assaultive excess nevertheless lingers for two and a half hours, like a drunken houseguest who won't leave.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Man on Fire is as ludicrous as "John Q," "Virtuosity" and "Out of Time," yet substantially more violent, artificial, self-conscious and dull.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

This is a time-tested movie con, but rarely has it been deployed so contemptibly.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This movie is a predictable, gruesome piece of business.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The movie's leisurely, elegant setup makes its action payoff seem, by contrast, particularly mechanical, cynical and grotesque.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Not even within earshot of a masterpiece, Man on Fire, based on its ratio of production costs to quality alone, may prove to be the worst movie of 2004.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The movie's mortal failing is echoed in the religious medal Pita gives Creasy in a gift of innocent, uplifting love: Finding heft or coherence within all the lugubrious agitation is a lost cause worthy of St. Jude.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Man on Fire is ponderous and bloated, dragging the Bible and Giannini into its swirling cesspool. Scott can't give the movie any real emotional weight. And Washington gives his first lifeless performance.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's dispiriting to see good actors doing smart, solid work with so much unadulterated garbage swirling around them. Scott's art is also death, and we, the audience, are the ones he's jabbing at with his ruthless paintbrush. It's about time someone told him where to stick it.