Man on Fire (1987)
Gun for hire Creasy’s latest job has him babysit the child of a wealthy family. All is well until his charge is kidnapped and he gets shot. As soon as he recovers, he goes apeshit and blows things up to save her.
What a great plot for the 80’s?
Don’t you mean the 00’s?
Nope, 2004’s Man on Fire starring Denzal Washington is in fact a remake of this version.
Man on Fire (1987) VHS cover
This version stars Scott Glen as Creasy and features some other great talent including Joe Pesci, Jonathan Pryce, and Danny “any mob film, i’m it!” Aiello. Strange how i’d never heard of it?
Plot wise it’s exactly the same as the remake but with less set pieces, no crazy subtitles, and no Mickey Rourke. This version is set in Lake Como rather than Mexico City, and unsurprisingly the children in both are annoying.
Interestingly Tony Scott was in the running to direct this back in the 80’s but the producers chose French director Elie Chouraqui instead. Perhaps it’s wrong to compare it in this way, if watch either you will be entertained and this version is not a bad film, just not as good as the remake.
Scott’s version whilst a lot longer does show that the story needs a longer running time to do it justice, the last act of this one is too short and is over before you know it. It is also missing the classic hand grenade up the arse scene. 1987’s Man on Fire is pretty hard to track down on DVD, I have only come across a German version so try Ebay if you want to track it down or buy it on video below.
