“Hold onto it.” His interest in the scriptures plays a role in breaking his alcoholism as he eventually substitutes the book for the bottle.
#Man on fire crack#
He also regularly reads the Bible and encourages Pita’s mother, Lisa, to crack its cover. Pita gives him a pendant of Saint Jude, patron saint of lost causes, which Creasy dutifully wears, an indication that he isn’t beyond hope. Upon finishing the quotation with her, Creasy says, “I’m the sheep that God lost, Madre.”Ĭreasy doesn’t completely abandon the things of God, though. Referring to his past as an assassin, Creasy asks Rayburn, “You think God’ll forgive us for what we’ve done?” When Rayburn replies in the negative, Creasy states, “You don’t? Me neither.” Later, a nun queries, “Do you ever see the hand of God in what you do?” and recites Romans 12:21 to him (“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”) when he says he does not. In the beginning, Creasy is a wreck, a man adrift who believes that wrath awaits him. The news kindles a vengeful fire in the wounded, broken-hearted Creasy who vows to destroy everyone who had a hand in her demise. In the hospital he learns that Pita had been kidnapped and the ransom drop had gone sour. His gun clears its holster and the next thing he knows, he’s lying on the ground with bullets in his chest and four dead bodies around him. Then, one day, as Creasy comes to pick Pita from a piano lesson, he sees strangers rushing the girl as she steps toward his car. He starts rediscovering things he’d forgotten. But somewhere between the swim meets, school runs, study sessions and meals with his charge, something begins to change in Creasy. He isn’t exactly crazy about kids, or anyone else for that matter. Recognizing the dangerous precipice on which his chum teeters, Rayburn decides that a job might take Creasy’s mind off his past and pitches the idea of becoming a bodyguard for a wealthy Mexican family.īefore he knows it, Creasy finds himself playing babysitter to Pita Ramos, the bright young daughter of a financially troubled industrialist. The burnt out, alcoholic, quasi-suicidal, ex-military man is down in Mexico just to visit his old friend Rayburn and drink away what remains of his life. Seventy percent of victims do not survive.Īt first, John Creasy doesn’t care about kidnapping statistics south of the border. Yes, it’s juvenile fan-boy gubbins (Tarantino’s a fan), but Scott’s still the daddy of sleazy Mexicano sadisto-flash trash.There is one kidnapping every 60 minutes in Latin America. There’s steely support from distraught mum Radha Mitchell, while Special Ops buddy Christopher Walken keeps a straight-ish face through lines like ‘his art is death and he’s about to paint his masterpiece’. It ought to be seriously unpalatable stuff, yet there’s something so cherishably naff about Scott’s jumping-bean cutting and hokey-cokey camerawork that it’s almost a guilty pleasure, hitting inspired heights of ridiculousness when wailing Lisa Gerrard on the soundtrack and lingering close-ups of Denzel’s St Jude medallion try to convince us of some spiritual redemption. Basically, it’s a Steven Seagal flick decked out to the nines, with the protagonist adopting the tooled-up Bushian approach of decimating the opposition first, then asking questions. Since the Mexico City setting is already established as a hotbed of iniquity, we can expect this to be pretty chewy, and so it is, as Denzel launches into a virtuoso display of scumbag-wasting. Extended scenes of boozy washed-up bodyguard Denzel Washington bonding with his precocious ten-year-old charge (Dakota Fanning) see the running-time of this revenge saga touching 150 minutes, when it’s obvious to you, me and Tony Scott’s cigar butt that they’re mere formalities before the girl’s inevitable kidnapping and the bit we’re waiting for: Denzel taking out the bad guys.
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