Man on Fire

Midway through watching Man on Fire last night I wanted to look something up about it so paused it and put a search into Google. One of the top results was its IMDb score which was a very impressive 7.7/10. Now the IMDb is a great resource but its rating system is susceptible to the whims of the masses and as a result, many films which don’t deserve them get high scores. On a related note, Star Trek into Darkness just yesterday crept into the IMDb Top 250, perfectly illustrating my point. For me Man on Fire is another example of this sort of overly hyped mass critical reception. While at its heart there is a great revenge story, it is surrounded my poor musical choices and cinematography which is so ill judged that it made concentrating on and enjoying the movie close to impossible.

Mexico City is one of the kidnapping capitals of the world and to protect his daughter (Dakota Fanning), businessman Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) hires a bodyguard to protect her when she’s out of their home. The bodyguard is former Marine and covert-ops officer John Creasy (Denzel Washington), a man with a drink problem and issues connecting with other people. Unsurprisingly the child is kidnapped and in the ensuing fire fight, Creasy is seriously wounded. When on the mend, though still critically ill, Creasy takes it on himself to track down the girl’s kidnappers and on a revenge/killing spree gets closer and closer to ‘the voice’ a master kidnapper, responsible for the taking and murder of several children.

Safe House

I don’t know what I was hoping for with Safe House but I certainly wasn’t expecting so little. With films like Taken setting the bar very low these days for the action genre it seems that a whole parade of films are following in its ridiculous wake and Safe House is but one of these movies. Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a CIA Safe House Operative in Cape Town. His role involves waiting around a secure house in case the CIA ever needs to move a criminal, terrorist etc. Twelve months into the posting Matt’s first house guest arrives in the shape of Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) a highly skilled rogue CIA Agent who is being chased by a menagerie of vaguely foreign looking killers. Frost repeatedly ditches Weston but he never stops hunting the rogue agent down and more nonsense I’m bored.

Safe House was more full of holes than holy water from the holy land and had the most obvious twist since Rock ‘n’ Roll. It is such a stupid movie that I can barely bring myself to discuss it. It is never exciting or interesting and beside solid but unspectacular central performances there is literally nothing of merit in the entire 110 minutes.

Flight

Prime Oscar bait Flight is Director Robert Zemeckis’ return to live action following more than a decade producing animated and computer generated movies. The movie tells the story of a crashed aircraft and the following weeks for its functioning alcoholic pilot (Whip Whitaker) Denzel Washington. Whip is a well trained and long serving pilot who has got by all throughout his adult life despite being drunk and stoned everyday. On the morning of the fated flight he is seen drinking beer and vodka and snorting cocaine and even drinks vodka during the fifty minute flight. Despite some miraculous instinct and skill which manages to save many lives Whip is due in front of a tribunal with a failed toxicology report hanging over his head.

It’s fair to say that Flight is one of the weaker of the Oscar season films and the intense crash and admirable Washington performance are all that separate it from mediocrity. The movie is full of religious babble, poorly chosen music and a code era ending which make the excellent opening instantly forgettable and sets up an hour and a half which passes the time but does little to induce much of an emotional response past the odd laugh and one tense moment.

The Hurricane

In 1966 professional boxer Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter was arrested for triple homicide and subsequently found guilty and sentenced to three life sentences for the crime. Despite always maintaining his innocence a second trial also came to the same guilty conclusion. Biopic The Hurricane tells the story of Carter’s fight to clear his name with the help of some unlikely accomplices in the form of three Canadians and the teenager from Brooklyn who they’d taken in. Denzel Washington stars as Hurricane Carter in one of the performances of his career in a film which portrays the hatred, racism and injustice that the human race is unfortunately capable of dishing out to one of its own.

The film uses a non linear timeline to flash back and forward from Carter’s early years, through his boxing career, incarceration and the eventual meeting between himself and Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon), Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger), Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber) and Terry Swinton (John Hannah) who all fought tirelessly to prove his innocence. The bulk of the film concentrates on the period from Carter’s arrest in 1966 to the mid 1980s though. Although it is far from a perfect film and inaccuracies have been levelled towards it, the incredible story and Washington’s performance make this a film which I’d recommend to anyone.

The Taking of Pelham 123

2009’s The Taking of Pelham 123 is a remake of the 1974 film of the same name. I haven’t seen that film so I can’t comment but the remake is a let down. A man by the name of ‘Ryder’ (John Travolta) takes control of a Subway train in New York City where he and three fellow hijackers take several hostages and demand $10m for their freedom. Ryder is in contact with a NYC train dispatcher called Garber (Denzel Washington) and the film follows his attempts to control the situation and stop any hostages from being killed.

The film starts off with an annoying frame rate which is reminiscent of watching strobe lighting. Thankfully this technique ends with the opening credits but it was a bad start to a poor film. At times it had my heart pounding, thanks in most part to a thumping techno soundtrack, but for the most part it was lifeless and dull. It is difficult to get excited about the film when the majority of the dialogue takes place via radio with Garber in his control room and Ryder in a Subway tunnel. When the action is taken outside these confines towards the end of the film, it picks up somewhat but by then it is too little too late.

I've got a goatee, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Denzel Washington does his thing of the everyman caught up in an extraordinary situation but John Travolta is completely unconvincing as a bad guy. Even with a gun to a passenger’s head he seems more like he’s playing a man who is a little bit naughty than the part of a deranged psycho with a score to settle. The supporting cast featuring John Turturro and James Gandolfini are given little to do and Gandolfini’s character of the Mayor takes off half way through the film, seemingly with a plan in mind, never to be seen again. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Perhaps the edit messed up his character’s arc…

The film’s ending seemed rushed and was disappointing but to be fair even a fantastic ending wouldn’t have prevented the film from being just mediocre.

5/10