Global Politics and the Modern Western in "MAN ON FIRE"

It starts off with a bang. Tony Scott throws us into a busy city square. The picture is as flashy, distorted, and as disjointed as we’ve come to expect by this point in Scott’s career. As a series of images are overlayed on top of each other as the editing and camera work becomes increasingly frenetic, we’re fed facts about the kidnapping rate in Latin America. Suddenly the film's score heats up as the Main Title plays. A man is kidnapped in broad daylight and bystanders (as well as the audience) are left in a daze as to what happened. The soundtrack goes through several tone changes during this process, starting out slow and ambient and suddenly comes in with distorted guitar that’s just as easily replaced by this chaotic drumming. Scott’s modern aesthetic is made clear in just fifteen seconds of the song’s runtime. Soon after we’re treated to soft, solemn strings and the aftermath of the kidnapping. This story arc never comes to an actual conclusion during the film's runtime. If the opening titles were any indication, the son most likely died in the kidnapper’s custody.

By the time Scott had entered the 2000s, the period cherished most dearly by his closest fans, he had already built his body of work around that beloved and renowned style of the character-based action flick. Somehow managing to balance the extreme and quirky tendencies of screenwriters Quentin Tarantino (True Romance) and Shane Black (The Last Boy Scout) as well as less ostentatious writers like Robert Towne (Days of Thunder, Crimson Tide) and Jim Harrison (Revenge), Scott brought his unique and inimitable vision to life via the megaplexes and 24 screen theaters of the world, and similarly to other vulgar auteurs, he seemed to believe that working within the studio system to make big-buck action pictures did not have to mean a compromise of artistic vision. Whereas someone like Michael Mann’s films often focus themselves on their environments and especially the changing world around them, Tony Scott’s films are a lot more personal, and comparatively warmer, even if a bit cynical. Perhaps this sincerity has kept him from that level of critical recognition.

Man on Fire is similar to his previous Crimson Tide as well as his swan song Unstoppable in its basis as a kind of revisionist Western. Scott moves Quinnell’s original story from Italy to Mexico City and paints a fragile state with alarming rates of crime, homicide, and kidnapping as the new wild, wild west. It’s suggested a number of times that a new sense of global interconnectedness fostering in the twenty-first century and increased American presence in these spaces has contributed to a new wave of opportunism. This should not be confused with some ultimately libertarian message, Man on Fire is no more anti-globalist than Blackhat is anti-technology. The conflict comes from the new problems presented by an increasingly globalist Western Hemisphere, and our current inability to remedy the problems that come with it completely. When it comes to Scott’s presentation of his worldview, the casting of Denzel Washington is key. Casting a white actor to play off the other white Americans would lead many to think the film was about Civilized westerners trying to escape the uncivilized Latin American states. Instead, the fairly diverse cast, both with the protagonists and antagonists, leads us to believe that the cynical worldview presented is global. Whether it be Creasy’s years of overseas military experience or the background shots of the Iraq War playing out on some television in the background, Scott makes his vision of hell global.

At the same time, the overwhelming presence of Man on Fire is incredibly American. Creasy has the approval of Pita’s mother for his nationality, and his methodology in the second half of the film is incredibly indicative of post 9/11 ends-justify-the-means politics. The fact that Creasy thinks Pita is dead is instrumental to this equation, as the information he gathers does not have a clear goal aside from some cold-blooded “justice” going up the chain of command. The melodramatic and overplayed violence feels at times as some sort of indictment. A brutal and unforgiving portrayal of the vulgarity of star-spangled justice. Sadism as American as apple pie, never truly feeling cathartic but more like misguided revenge. However, it’s this same violence that Scott uses, with his many formal talents, for more than just the typical contextual and subtextual purposes. He has managed to find, in this absolute ugliness, something sublime. As uttered by Rayburn during the film with something like fleeting admiration:

“A man can be an artist...

in anything... food, whatever.

It depends on how good he is at it.

Creasy's art is death.

He's about to paint his masterpiece.”

Scott has, as he has done the past, elevated violence into an art-form. Crisp bodies moving against green and orange explosions, patters of blood spilling on a broken windshield, so many lines of dialogue stand out, however stilted they may be, as poetry.

“Here’s your chance. Say goodbye to her, say goodbye to her”.

“Forgiveness is between them and god, it’s my job to arrange the meeting”

“I have all the time in the world. You don’t. But I do”.

Scott finds beauty in the strangest of places. The most striking example of his sensibilities is the opening kidnapping scene. Moments of violence, desperation, and aggression are broken up by a glance from Pita towards Creasy. The scene itself switches from the intense song choice to a soft piano medley. A soft brushstroke of emotion is painted on a heavy, violent kidnapping scene.

Creasy also seems to be, in and of himself, a walking subversion. It is abundantly clear that he is not the quiet, brooding Clint Eastwood or the talking and moral John Wayne. On the surface, there is almost nothing admirable about him. He’s a suicidal, washed-up alcoholic with violent tendencies and seemingly no future, working this job because he can’t do anything else. He later reveals himself to be vengeful, even at points heartless. If we consider Man on Fire as a sort of remake of The Searchers, the same way we might consider Crimson Tide a remake of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, it becomes clear that Creasy is the polar opposite of Ethan Edwards. A white supremacist and former Confederate with a raging temper is replaced by a calm, cool collected black international agent. An inevitable wrong place, wrong time kidnapping by Native American tribes portrayed as savages is replaced with an unfortunate oversight by Creasy leading to his failure. The responsibility is as much his as it is the kidnappers. Creasy does not find himself surrounded with the same support group that Edwards does. Walking off alone in the distance is not Creasy’s future. It is present, as it was his past. It is his existence. Man on Fire reimagines this classic American tale with something like brute honesty, and even Scott’s perceived Hollywood ending of protagonist triumph is still tinged with this bittersweetness. Whereas The Searchers and it’s quasi-remake Taxi Driver led their protagonists to open-ended and protectedly positive endings, Man on Fire restates Scott’s worldview again. Humanists and the compassionate few are punished for their love.

At its heart, Man on Fire retains a level of humanism that is unprecedented for the action genre, even among his contemporaries. There’s a reason Scott spends nearly an hour of the two-and-a-half hour film showcasing the relationship between Creasy and Pita. It starts off coldly; Creasy is man seemingly with only one friend in the world, who seems increasingly preoccupied with his own life, and at first denies any advances or attempts at friendship made by Pita. As a precaution to his potentially dangerous job, he decides not to foster any emotional attachment to his subjects. As he starts to realize the unfortunate absence of her parents at a number of school events he eventually becomes a surrogate father to Pita, helping her with schoolwork and culminating in an eventual coaching victory at her swim meet. Not too long later, after giving her advice on how to subvert her father's wishes at a piano lesson, she ends up being kidnapped. A detached man finally shows someone in his life love and he’s immediately punished for it. It’s another restatement of Tony Scott’s pessimistic and cynical worldview, and it makes the ultimate bittersweet ending all the more rewarding and powerful. The power of love and determination to do the right thing triumphs over the forces of greed. This kidnapping scene is vital because it is shown that it was an inevitable happening for Creasy. Pita was kidnapped specifically because of a number of Creasy’s failures. Towards the end of the scene, Creasy is shot and lies on the ground as Pita cries over his writhing body. It is from this position that Creasy watches men carry Pita away. During the time he thinks she’s dead, he is struggling not with trying to find and rescue Pita, but with his own emotions. The only person on earth that he loved was taken away from him, and it was because he failed when the time to act came. This level of personal responsibility is such an odd twist for the genres Scott likes to play with. The source of conflict is only external in terms of narrative. Creasy’s moral dilemma drives the picture at every turn. He’s not seeking revenge, he’s seeking redemption.