Fresh from his splendid ode to friendship and the movie business, Wonder Man, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II now takes on a role made famous by a pre-Equalizer Denzel Washington.
Oh, and one that's also been played by Scott Glenn, Amitabh Bachchan and Arjun, too.
We're talking killing machine John Creasy (originally "Marcus" Creasy in the 1980 source novel by AJ Quinnell, and "Christian" in the 1987 Scott Glenn adaptation) from 2004's ultraviolent, beloved-by-the-people (if not the critics) Tony Scott movie Man On Fire.
Developed by Kyle Killen (Halo), this series shifts the action to Brazil and presents Creasy as a former US Army Special Forces captain, now a PTSD-suffering, alcoholic burnout haunted by the deaths of his entire team on a CIA contract job in Mexico four years earlier.
Given a redemptive shot at a high-level security job by his old friend Paul Rayburn (Bobby Cannavale, most recently in Scarpetta), Creasy suddenly finds himself having to keep rebellious teenager Poe (Billie Boullet, The Worst Witch) from being killed by revolutionaries and a mystery man on a motorcycle.
The stakes get higher when Creasy himself is framed for a mass killing, leading him to enlist the aid of new friends – driver-for-hire Valeria Melo (Alice Braga) and her contacts in a nearby favela – and old ones too, mainly CIA senior officer Henry Tappen (Scoot McNairy).
Expect a fair amount of retooling to the original plot, which was just right for a movie, to stretch things out to series length – which, at seven instalments here, is a little shorter than the average episode count for a streaming show.
The result is that this particular incarnation of Quinnell's burning man flares brightly in places, but has his fire cooled by too many detours from the central path of revenge and vindication.
So how does Abdul-Mateen fare, filling in Washington's shoes? Well, the Emmy winner for Watchmen makes a terrific Creasy, layering the character's killing-machine vibe with four years of burnout rust and torment; while imbuing him with a vulnerability from his PTSD and crushing losses that give him even more demons and doubts to battle through.
When the script fires on all cylinders, so does its star; but with a relatively skimpy premise dragged out over seven parts (all "imaginatively" titled by number – One, Two, Three, etc), this does not happen all that often.
With Creasy forced to drop out of sight just to give the supporting characters something to do and pad out the proceedings, it's up to Braga and Boullet to pick up the slack in these "meanwhile" moments, and they do so admirably.
There are also some passably interesting side plots involving the favela dwellers' complicated relationships, but the overall pace is dampened by a slew of contrivances. (That whole "hostage exchange" sequence really messed everything up, IMHO.)
Granted, it is hard to sustain the high-octane rush and intensity of spleen-venting violence from the Denzel version over seven episodes. What the creative team does get right is portraying the growing trust and interdependence between Creasy and Poe, which gives the show some much-needed heart at its centre.
Overall, Man On Fire gets a passing grade as an "origin" (or more fittingly, rebirth?) story and opens the door for more Creasy adventures – there are four more books in Quinnell's run (though elements from the second book are apparently in here somewhere) and endless possibilities for all-new stories by Killen and team.
Just bear in mind, go a little more "all gas, no brakes" next season, people. And keep the distance manageable.
All seven episodes of Man On Fire are available to stream on Netflix.
Summary:
Needs more Firestarter
