Unrelenting Vengeance

At the video rental store a few days ago I happened to pick up this title called ‘Man on Fire’ and showed it to the other half as a possible one to watch that night. Quite amusingly she refused it because, based upon the description on the back, it was ‘2 hours of bloody unrelenting vengeance’. Sounded like my sort of film, but not quite hers’ apparently.

I ended up picking it up over the weekend and we were both surprised by how good the film was. I was left to wonder who actually did the marketing for this film because the title, description and even down to the cover completely under-sold the whole thing. It was far better than just ‘2 hours of bloody unrelenting vengeance’. Little did I know that it was a book, written by the pen-named A.J Quinnell ^{[wiki link]}

Some details were changed from the book and this one is set to the backdrop of Mexico city. The plot revolves around ‘Creasy’ [Denzil Washington], a washed up military assassin who turns to Jack Daniels and the Bible, and a small girl he’s been employed to protect as a bodyguard. It’s not your average kill-em-all, and is surprising in its depth. No doubt you can guess what occurs as part of the plot: The little sweet girl that breaks the hard-man exterior gets kidnapped, he feels guilty (but not because he took out two ‘bent’ cops in the ensuing shoot out of the kidnap scene), and proceeds on a bender of destruction and death that belies the calm and considered approach he takes to it. At one point ‘Rayban’ [Christopher Walken] one of Creasy’s old assassin buddies is talking with a cop :

A man can be an artist in anything….
Stone, paint, words. Food…. Anything if his soul is true to it.
Creasy’s art is death. And he’s about to paint his masterpiece.

I won’t spoil the rest for you, but there are a few twists and turns yet in the tale. You should rent this out if you happen to like a gritty flick. It’s pretty old, but then again I’m not a mad movie person either. The camera work is superb as is the soundtrack, and the bloody unrelenting vengeance is pretty damn good too. It’s one of those films that absorbs you, and if the book is just as good I’ll let you know.