Man on Fire premieres April 30 on Netflix.
By Elazar Abrahams
J. Quinnell’s 1980 novel Man on Fire was famously adapted into a 2004 film starring Denzel Washington, a dynamically-shot movie whose most common critique is that it’s “too stylized.” Netflix has now adapted the story again into a seven episode series that certainly won’t have that description lobbed against it. Instead, it’s flat, dull, and frustratingly generic.
To be clear, it’s still very watchable. Almost compulsively so, because something is always happening. Early in the season, there are several exciting set pieces with explosions, shootouts, and an especially fun hand-to-hand combat sequence on a plane rolling down the runway that closes episode two. The show knows how to stage action well enough to keep you from clicking away.
However, action can only carry a thriller so far when the characters are paper thin and the filmmaking is visually dead.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays John Creasy, an ex-mercenary suffering from extreme PTSD who tries to start fresh, then gets pulled back into violence. I’ve been saying for a while that Yahya is one of the most compelling screen presences working today, and he has a way of anchoring scenes even when the writing is giving him nothing but silent brooding. Here though, Man on Fire is really not giving you much to hold onto. Not with Creasy, nor with the girl he’s protecting. It’s all sketched so thinly that the emotional stakes feel assumed rather than earned.
That thinness becomes even more glaring because this is a story that already exists in a two-hour version. If you’re going to stretch that into seven episodes, you need to enhance it. We need deeper characterization, more textured relationships, a stronger atmosphere, or at least some kind of new angle. Instead, the series feels like it’s spreading the same material across a longer canvas without adding much paint.
The other issue is that the direction and camera work feel shockingly bland. Tony Scott’s film had an aggressive identity. Again, that style is polarizing, but it was undeniably a point of view. This Netflix version has the opposite problem. It often looks like a default streaming thriller: competent and functional, but little personality in exchange. Even when the show is in motion, it rarely feels cinematic.
So the experience becomes oddly hollow. You’re watching a revenge-protection thriller that doesn’t really grab your attention. The characters don’t pop, and the series format never justifies itself
If you want a mid-tier, turn-your-brain-off action binge, this might scratch that itch. But for viewers hoping the show will provide gripping intensity, Man on Fire is going to feel like a missed opportunity.
I give Man on Fire a C.
TV and City 