Man
On Fire
Script Review
Everybody's
favorite Displaced Dominican in Los Angeles........El Motherfucking
Mayimbe here with my first and would hope many script reviews
for King Kellvin of Latino King Review. Who am I? Here is a description
of me, I'm six foot five, Latin and lovely!
Ok, enough of the corny rap and on to la carne of this article.
Kellvin has been pressing me for days for this review and his
patience just about had it and was going to give me the only "shancletaso"
(latin slipper beat down for all you non-latins) plus fifty lashes
with a bamboo stick (ouch).
 El
guion in question? MAN ON FIRE! Denzel Washington's next film
to be directed by Tony Scott and written by oscar winner Brian
Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Payback). Man on Fire is a passion
project for Tony Scott who wanted to do this movie back in da
day before he blew up and couldn't bring it to fruition, so he
did Top Gun instead. Nuff Said. The project was revived when Helgeland
turned in a strong draft (the one I'm gonna review for ya coño!).
A candy ass sub par TV movie of the week version with Scott Glen
was made back in 1987. This review contains SPOLIERS so if you
don't like it, pues vete para el carajo
y no jodas! The draft of this script is dated 6/17/02 and from
what I gather, Scott wants the story now to take place in Mexico
rather than Italy. Perhaps for budgetary reasons? I would keep
it in Italy because Scott already made a small Mexican revenge
movie back in da day named REVENGE with Kevin Costner and Latino
Acting God Anthony Quinn (RIP). Four you A.D.D. folks out there
here is the short version of what Man on Fire is about....
Denzel Washington plays an embittered former Marine named Creasy
(grasa?!) who's persuaded to take a job as bodyguard of the child
of a family that has been living under threats from kidnappers
in Italy. When the child is kidnapped and killed accidentally
in a botched exchange for a ransom, the soldier devotes himself
to avenging her death. Basically a revenge movie and a good one
at that if the filmmakers keep how Creasy gets his revenge intact,
i'll give you a little taste in a sec, so aguantas.
Italians are gonna be pissed because in this script Denzel's whups
a lot of scongeli ass! He bascially brings down the whole jodido
Roman mafia single-handedly by himself in the third act. The script
is well written by my only problem with it (which will be handled
in the rewrites I bet) is that nothing happens until page 55 (the
kidnapping) or almost one hour into the movie, until it really
takes off. The 1st 55 pages introduces Denzel, he's suicidal,
he's got issues, he meets the little girl, the little girl slowly
breaks down his armour (the little girl will be played by a dope
little actress named Dakota Fanning from I AM SAM), they become
close and Denzel becomes her father figure because her real dad
doesn't have time for her but for his business. The girl's name
is Pinta and basically Pinta gives Creasy a reason to live. All
of this is important and the script is well structured, but it
just takes too long to get to any action. Its boring at first
but boy does it payoff!
One of my favorite passages comes in at page 58 when Creasy is
recovering from the kidnapping (he messed up) in the hospital
and finds out she died. Check it out.
INT.
HOSPITAL ROOM - MILAN -- NIGHT
Guido stands at the window looking out. He turns to Creasy stirs,
wakes again.
Creay's eyes flicker to his friend, ask the first on his mind.
Pinta...
GUIDO
She died, Creasy.
And with those words, God takes everything away. It might
as well be the fucking
Old Testament. Creasy might as well be fucking Job. And we are
about to get
fucking Biblical!
COñO! Now that is screenwriting folks! Thats how you write
desciption! When I read that I was like "Anda Diablo, now
we gonna see a jodido pelicula!"
My favorite revenge part of the flick is when Creasy gets buck
wild with a mobster in particular named Fossella. If they keep
this in the movie, then this alone will be worth the price of
admission. Check it out...
CREASY
Can your hear me?
The tape is gone from his mouth but Fossella just nods.
Creasy holds up a metal cylinder. He unscrews it in the
middle and shows Fossella the two hollow halves.
CREASY
This is a charger. It's used by
convicts to conceal money and drugs.
It's hidden inside the body. In the rectum.
Fossella sits in the chair, reacts to the discomfort he's
feeling. Creasy raises his eyebrows. Yes, that's right.
Creasy does his show and tell. Holds up some plastique,
along with several other items.
CREASY
This is a high explosive. This is a
detonator. This is a timer. Put it
together and you have a bomb.
Very small, but very powerful. That's
what you're feeling up your ass right now.
Fossella shifts again, feels it again.
CREASY
It's timed to blow up at ten o'clock.
 CCOOñOO!!!
When I read that I was like "Oh, Shit!"
This cat is getting biblical! You figure out what happens next.
It's gonna be cool to watch Denzel play a bad ass, trust me folks.
Other than that the movie has a good ending, which I'm not gonna
spoil but you have to pay attention in the beginning because it
makes sense at the end as to why the girl got kidnapped (setup/payoff
for all you screenwriting types out there). That's it for now,
so check out the flick when it comes out because I'm sure it's
gonna be banging when it comes out. Other than that, I hope you
enjoyed the script review of MAN ON FIRE. I'm
busting outta here cuz my ASS is ON FIRE from writing this review!
The script gets 3 1/2 stars from me. Back to my mission of looking
for decent Carribean food in Los Angeles (Doesn't anyone out here
know how to make a fucking maduro!? If so email me elmayimbe@latinoreview.com,
cuz the Latin food in Los Angeles sucks Walter Mercado's balls!)
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