{"id":2575,"date":"2024-08-19T04:22:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T04:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2575"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:22:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:22:52","slug":"man-on-fire-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/19\/man-on-fire-1987\/","title":{"rendered":"Man on Fire (1987)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Man on Fire <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Action-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Elie Chouraqui\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Elie Chouraqui and Sergio Donati\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Scott\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerry Fisher\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 9, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Scott Glenn, Jade Malle, Joe Pesci, Danny Aiello, Brooke Adams, Paul Shenar, Jonathan Pryce, Laura Morante, Giancarlo Prete, Lorenzo Piani, Franco Trevisi.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $519,596 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0When you hear the title Man on Fire<\/strong>, you probably think of the 2004 action-thriller starring Denzel Washington and 9YO Dakota Fanning. What many people don\u2019t know is that it\u2019s actually a remake of a 1987 action-drama starring Scott Glenn and 12YO Jade Malle.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t fault people for not knowing that since the original Man on Fire<\/strong>, based on the novel by A.J. Quinnell, barely made a ripple when it was released in fall \u201987. It played for one week and didn\u2019t even break the $1 million mark at the box office. Critics didn\u2019t have a lot of kind things to say about it. I missed it, it went away so fast. I caught it the following summer on cable TV and turned it off before it was over. I thought it was horrible. It was dark, murky, slow-moving, humorless and heavy-handed. I tried watching it again in \u201997 and made it all the way through that time. I still hated it. I fully expected to hate it again when I rewatched it recently. I didn\u2019t. On the contrary, I kind of liked it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Scott Glenn (Urban Cowboy) plays John Creasy, a burned-out ex-CIA agent haunted by memories of the atrocities he witnessed in Vietnam and Beirut. His friend, fellow ex-CIA agent David (Pesci, Raging Bull), gets him a job as bodyguard to Sam (Malle), the young daughter of a wealthy American couple (Adams and Shenar) in Italy where kidnapping by the Mafia is a major concern. Sam wants to be friends with Creasy, but he doesn\u2019t want to get close. She eventually breaks through his tough exterior and the two become friends. On the way home from a friend\u2019s wedding (she goes as Creasy\u2019s plus-one), she\u2019s pulled from his car by masked men. Creasy is shot multiple times trying (and failing) to prevent her from being taken. After an unusually short period of recovery, he sets out to track down the kidnappers, kill them and bring Sam home safely to her family.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Man on Fire<\/strong> isn\u2019t a bad movie, not at all. It just doesn\u2019t know what it wants to be. No, that\u2019s not quite right. It wants to be two things, a character-driven drama and a shoot-\u2018em-up action flick, but stitches them together rather clumsily. The first half, which I think is the better half, focuses on the relationship between Creasy and his young charge. It\u2019s interesting to watch them bond over John Steinbeck\u2019s Of Mice and Men. A quote from the book comes to define their special bond. They\u2019re both lonely souls. He has nobody and her family is almost never around. The connection they have between them is real and when it\u2019s threatened by outside forces, Creasy jumps into action. The second half of Man on Fire<\/strong> shows Creasy going after the creeps that snatched Sam. The main creep behind the kidnapping is Mafia leader Conti (Aiello, Moonstruck). Of course, Creasy has to go through a few other bad guys to get to him. This portion of the movie is good, but it burns out before the climax.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Man on Fire<\/strong> has its share of flaws. The direction by Elie Chouraqui (Les Menteurs) is choppy. The two parts don\u2019t gel as well as they should. It\u2019s an odd mix of European art film and American revenge flick. It makes for a very uneven movie. He also relies heavily on atmosphere. Ridley Scott\u2019s influence on the movie\u2019s look is obvious. Much of the second half takes place in darkness. Sometimes it\u2019s hard to make out what\u2019s going on. And, of course, it has to rain during the climax. The overemphasis on style diminishes substance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Glenn is quite good in the lead role. He has a strong presence, both physically and emotionally. He really tries to get to the core of his character and mostly succeeds. Malle, who never appeared in another movie, is a pretty good actress. She deftly conveys her character\u2019s loneliness and sense of isolation. She doesn\u2019t overplay the cute card; unfortunately, she occasionally veers into brat mode.<\/p>\n

\u00a0These are the only fully realized characters in Man on Fire<\/strong>. We know next to nothing about Pesci\u2019s character although he has this really great scene where he obtains a suitcase filled with weapons for Creasy. There seems to be a pre-existing relationship between Creasy and Adams\u2019 character; what it is I can\u2019t say with any certainty. All I know is that she goes to him one night (before the kidnapping) for comfort. One gets the idea her marriage is an unhappy one. I wasn\u2019t even sure who Pryce (Brazil) was supposed to be. I thought he was the husband but that\u2019s Shenar (Scarface). I think Pryce is the family lawyer or something; he handles the negotiations with the kidnappers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I often say that if Hollywood has to do remakes, they should remake bad movies and fix what\u2019s wrong. Man on Fire<\/strong> was remade in 2004. It was directed by Tony Scott who was originally slated to direct the original but replaced because the studio felt he didn\u2019t have enough experience. I\u2019d like to say the remake is an improvement, but that\u2019s not entirely true. It fixes a few of the problems but at two-and-a-half hours, it\u2019s bloated and overlong. It\u2019s also a case of style-over-substance. I have to say that I prefer the original over the remake. I still stand by what I say about remakes though.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The 1987 Man on Fire<\/strong> is not that bad a movie. It\u2019s not that great of one either. It falls into that narrow gap between success and failure. It\u2019s neither one and both at the same time. Either way, it\u2019s an interesting movie.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Man on Fire (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Action-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Elie Chouraqui\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Elie Chouraqui and Sergio Donati\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Scott\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerry Fisher\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 9, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Scott Glenn, Jade Malle, Joe Pesci, Danny Aiello, Brooke Adams, Paul Shenar, Jonathan Pryce, Laura Morante, Giancarlo Prete, Lorenzo Piani, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Man-on-Fire-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3377,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions\/3377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}