Once upon a time in Mexico

Noel Vera

Tony Scott's "Man on Fire" right away shoots up to the top of the
list as the year's most migraine-inducing movie. Shock cuts, speeded-
up footage, a kind of double-vision effect, unnatural colors--seems
like there isn't a single cheap gimmick Scott isn't in love with to
the point of tedium. He uses them immediately, at the start,
to "introduce" us to the horrors of Mexico, and keeps using them
over and over again, as if afraid we might miss the point.

To be fair, this kind of music-video visual styling isn't far from
what Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu tries to do with "Amores Perros" or
Katia Lund and Fernando Meirelles with "City of God"--only when they
depict their cities (Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, respectively)
they do it with a native's eye, with a familiarity with the violence
and abject poverty but also with due recognition and affection for
unique virtues; when Scott uses it, we're meant to see Mexico as
Hell on Earth, with over forty kidnappings occurring a day, mostly
wealthy Mexicans and expatriates.

One problem with this is that the cuts and speeding-up and double-
vision and colors tend to obscure details, so that we can't even be
sure of the city (some of the dinginess could have been shot in
Manila, or the worst parts of L.A.); we need to be told by
subtitles. For all the surface flavor, the underlying particulars
are remarkably bland and indistinct (if you really want to see
something you've never quite seen before, check out the vicious
dogfights in Inarritu's "Amores Perros"). Scott isn't even using a
very original visual style--it's essentially Kyle Cooper's famous
title design for "Se7en," extended to feature-film length. Maybe his
one somewhat original contribution to the language of cinema is a
uniquely annoying use of subtitles that zoom in and out, fade in and
out, flash at the most arbitrary moments, and for unknown reasons
translates English dialogue into English.

As for the story…Creasy (Denzel Washington) is a former Marine and
counterinsurgency expert who lands in Mexico because he has nowhere
else to go; an old friend named Rayburn (Christopher Walken) throws
a bone his way: a cushy job as bodyguard to Pita (Dakota Fanning),
daughter of rich Mexican industrialist Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony)
and his wife, Lisa (Radha Mitchell).

Creasy is closed-mouthed about his past, but Pita--this is
practically de rigeur for Hollywood brats nowadays--wears away his
reserve with her precocious preciousness; soon he's coaching her on
competition swimming and advising her on how to skip piano lessons,
while she writes down the license plates of suspicious-looking cars
in her diary. When an attempt is finally made to kidnap Pita, Creasy
manages to kill a handful of the kidnappers (including two members
of the Mexican police collaborating with the criminals), but not
enough to avoid Pita being taken; he recuperates in the hospital
while Pita's parents bungle the ransom payment and get their
daughter killed.

The writer from whose novel this movie's been based, A.J. Quinnell,
is a largely out-of-print novelist fond of writing muscular
international counterterrorist thrillers, in the Frederick Forsythe
vein, only with updated references and techniques, then adapted for
the big screen by Brian Helgeland (who also adapted "L.A.
Confidential" and "Mystic River"). Assuming Helgeland retained the
original flavor of Quinnell (apparently the popular choice when it
comes to adapting novels), he seems remarkably xenophobic: South
America and the Middle East are hotbeds for terrorists and criminals
and corrupt government officials--not too far from the truth,
admittedly, only the heroes are Western counterinsurgency experts
who wade in, as often as not without orders, wipe away the scum, and
bring Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men.

In this case, with Creasy deprived of his beloved Pita and the
kidnappers after him for killing several of their own, Creasy rises
up from his hospital bed Mel Gibson-style to go forth and demand
payback, big time. What follows is a catalogue of the many ways in
which Mexicans can be tortured, maimed, and killed--fingers cut off
and cauterized by cigarette-lighter; hands, feet and various body
extremities blown away by shotgun blast; bomb shoved up the rectum
and detonated. The question of racism or moral right never enters
the equation of course: these are kidnappers and child-killers who
deserve what they get, while Creasy is a grieving man who happens to
know the latest in interrogation and counterterrorist techniques, so
it's all right (only the more intelligent viewers dumb enough to
walk into this movie will find themselves scratching their heads).

What defuses much of the racist charge (though not entirely, not by
a long shot) is Denzel Washington's performance in the lead.
Casting, say, Steven Seagal as Creasy would have made the racism all
the obvious; using a black man muddies the issue (presumably the
producers hoped it would). It isn't just Washington's skin color--he
carries Creasy's angst and inner pain gracefully on his squared
shoulders; when Pita dies his grief is movingly understated, with an
intriguing hint of psycho sadist showing through here, there (at one
point he demands to know if a man had killed Pita and discharges his
shotgun on the man's leg, seemingly out of spite). Put Washington
down as one of the few men in the business (the others--it's not a
long list--might include Jeff Bridges and James Woods) able to play
a man walking the long and thorny road to redemption persuasively:
he mainly does it tight-lipped, unwilling to give us or Pita any
indication of what he really feels, so that when something finally
breaks through it has all the impact of a thermite charge--you gasp
at the sudden brightness.

The rest of the cast doesn't fare as well. I thought Radha Mitchell
was excellent in the somewhat lugubrious, somewhat
entertaining "Pitch Black;" as Lisa Ramos, Pita's mother, she's a
supermodel airhead in search of the best lighting (her role as
grieving mother could have been much more pivotal). Mickey Rourke is
wasted in the part of a sleazy lawyer; Christopher Walken fares
somewhat better as Creasy's eccentric (read: wacko) military buddy.
Rachel Ticotin and Giancarlo Giannini as a reporter and
investigating officer respectively give their supporting roles some
texture, but are mainly impotent plot functions (Ticotin's character
is a particularly sad waste--she could have acted as foil to Creasy,
questioning his motives and her own in helping him).

When the movie finishes, end titles tell us what happened to the
main characters, in the manner of docu-dramas (!); an afterword
gives profuse thanks the city of Mexico, adding insult to injury.

(First appeared in Businessworld, April 30, 2004)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)