Man On Fire

I'm not normally into the revenge type stories that a lot of modern films use, with two notable exceptions: Breakdown and Man On Fire. Breakdown because it has the brilliant JT Walsh and Kurt Russell facing off against each other. Man On Fire uses several tricks to overcome the usually revenge-movie traps.

First, the lead character Creasy (Denzel Washington) isn't particularly likable at first. But he warms and begins to like Pita, the girl he's hired to protect from would-be kidnappers. Secondly, the kidnap of Pita and subsequent events leave no room for forgiveness in Creasy's mind. So as the audience, you don't feel any sympathy for them. Everything that happens to them is justifiable because they are the vilest people who ever walked the earth. And third, the film pulls away from the nastier stuff when Creasy is attacking the kidnappers, pulling back to wide shots with loud music. It's kind of the film equivalent of closing your eyes, sticking fingers in your ears and going "Nah nah nah I'm not listening!"

There are a lot of jump-shots, where the camera jerks aside and the image flashes. Normally I don't like these, but here they are used to great effect, to illustrate in a visible way Creasy's state of mind. When he is calm, the shots go away. When he gets angry, they return. It's a clever effect, even if it is seriously over-used and often used badly these days.

Very cop out ending, I thought. Too much Hollywood, not enough story. It's not the sort of film I would have gone to the cinema for, but I caught it on TV over the weekend, and I enjoyed it.

Stranger Than Fiction

Odd film this.

Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who's hearing a woman's voice, narrating his life.

Dr. Mittag-Leffler: I'm afraid what you're describing is schizophrenia.
Harold Crick: No, no. It's not schizophrenia. It's just a voice in my head. I mean, the voice isn't telling me to do anything. It's telling me what I've already done... accurately, and with a better vocabulary.
Dr. Mittag-Leffler: Mr. Crick, I hate to sound like a broken record, but that's schizophrenia.

Emma Thompson in the narrator he's hearing: Karen Eiffel, an author who's trying to kill the lead character in her book, a book which she's been writing for the last 10 years. Harold does his best to ignore the voice up until the point where it tells him he's going to die in a week.

Will Ferrell is basically pulling a trick out of Jim Carrey's book and doing a straight film with comedy elements, ala The Truman Show. He pulls it off remarkably well, and given than for large parts of this film, he's the only one in the scene, it's quite impressive for someone thought of as 'just a comedy actor,' a phrase that is one of the worst curses in Hollywood. Maggie Gyllenhall is cast perfectly as Anna, a romantic lead required to avoid being a-typical Hollywood stunning and beautiful, but instead to entice and captivate Harold's heart.
Dustin Hoffman plays a professor of literature helping Harold. The quiz he gives him had me giggling.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: What is your favorite word?
Harold Crick: Integer.

The story is quite slow paced, and although it does have humour, there's little in the 'laugh-out-loud' category. That's not a problem as the story is both bizarre and straight-laced and that level of comedy would have swamped it and drowned out the message completely.

Utterly brilliant ending. Thoroughly recommended.

Score: B. Entertaining, but not the all out comedy I had been promised by the trailer.

OQ: Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to forty-three seconds. His wristwatch thought the single Windsor made his neck look fat, but said nothing.

Trivia: To portray someone not sleeping and plagued with writer's block, Emma Thompson wore no make-up during the filming.