{"id":763333,"date":"2026-04-30T08:58:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/763333\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:58:22","slug":"man-on-fire-review-a-new-john-creasy-takes-the-helm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/763333\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Man on Fire’ review: A new John Creasy takes the helm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cMan on Fire,\u201d premiering Thursday on Netflix, is the third adaptation of A. J. Quinnell\u2019s 1980 novel of the same name and maintains the tradition of setting the action in a new place, with a new story. Following the films \u201cMan on Fire\u201d<\/a> (2004, starring Denzel Washington, set in Mexico City) and \u201cMan on Fire\u201d (1987, starring Scott Glenn, set in Italy), it stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II<\/a>, unfolds in Rio de Janeiro and has little to do with previous versions, apart from pairing a damaged security operative and an imperiled young girl.<\/p>\n

Abdul-Mateen plays John Creasy, a CIA operative who hit the skids after an operation he was supervising remotely went fatally wrong, leaving him with a case of PTSD and a drinking problem. Four years later, his old friend Paul Rayburn (Bobby Cannavale) arrives to rescue him from himself, carting him down to Rio, where Rayburn is working for a security company on a construction site \u2014 there is a presidential election coming, and protests are feared. Not to go into events that surprised the heck out of me, but a supposed act of terrorism propels Creasy, along with Rayburn\u2019s 16-year-old daughter, Poe (Billie Boullet), into a mobile game of Who Can You Trust, as Creasy seeks answers and revenge. (His touch is not light.)<\/p>\n

Much of the series takes place in a Rio favela, the type of hill-climbing shanty town art film lovers will know from \u201cBlack Orpheus\u201d and \u201cCity of Men\u201d (also a 2002 Brazilian TV series), where Creasy and Poe wind up by the grace of Valeria Melo (Alice Braga), a driver Creasy hires who offers them shelter from those who seek to kill them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you drive a car you don\u2019t just meet lots of different people,\u201d she says, \u201cyou learn to really see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else do you see?\u201d asks Creasy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone who needs a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

John Creasy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) goes to lengths to protect Poe Rayburn (Billie Boullet), the teenage daughter of his old friend Paul.<\/p>\n

(Juan Rosas \/ Netflix)<\/p>\n

Bit by bit a team comes together. (I am a sucker for that narrative device.) Along with Valeria, a voice of wisdom, there are Livro (Jefferson Baptista), a sensitive child of the streets, and someone her own age for Poe to not mind adults with; Vico (Iago Xavier), a gang member protective of Livro; and Ivan (Alex Ozerov-Meyer), a rich-boy former associate of Creasy with a taste for adventure \u2014 an ad hoc Impossible Mission Force who will pull off some implausibly complicated capers, and, dare I say it, a family. Back at Langley, Tappan (Scoot McNairy) and Moncrief (Paul Ben-Victor) monitor the action in Brazil. (Caveats regarding trust apply.)<\/p>\n

Twists and turns included, \u201cMan on Fire,\u201d created by Kyle Killen, is straightforward action entertainment, a traditional payback drama with generally clear-cut good guys and bad guys, once you sort them out. It\u2019s the sort of show that should play well globally (American characters aside, it has little to do with America), not so much meat-and-potatoes entertainment as carne e batatas. In its colorful funkiness, the setting elevates the action \u2014 Alejandro Mart\u00ednez (\u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d) is the director of photography and gets great results wherever he points his camera \u2014 of which there is a good deal, more brutal than balletic and often not a little upsetting. (More than \u201cnot a little upsetting\u201d are some unduly extended scenes of torture.) Similarly, the cast wrings some poetry out of the prosaic, often aphoristic dialogue.<\/p>\n

Abdul-Mateen, who starred in the Marvel series \u201cWonder Man\u201d<\/a> (in which he was sweet and funny) and as Doctor Manhattan in TV\u2019s \u201cWatchmen\u201d (in which he was blue), is what the clinicians call a splendid physical specimen, as well as a fine actor. Here he is neither funny nor blue \u2014 sweet, at a stretch. \u201cI think that might be the first time I\u2019ve seen you smile,\u201d Poe tells him 14 minutes into the second episode, up until which time he\u2019s been consistently stone-faced. (They have simultaneously quoted her father\u2019s nonmetaphorical maxim, \u201cYou learn to play chess, you learn to play life.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Is it a spoiler to say he\u2019ll soften by the end? That we will glimpse a gentler, healthier Creasy? As Poe, the excellent Boullet \u2014 who was Anne Frank for Disney+<\/a> \u2014 has feeling enough for both of them. Come for the punching, stay for the healing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMan on Fire,\u201d premiering Thursday on Netflix, is the third adaptation of A. J. Quinnell\u2019s 1980 novel of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":763334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[11030,72332,1582,276,313618,5025,2961,313621,224,5337,2089,14004,313620,313624,313619,313623,313625,18575,313622,109558],"class_list":["post-763333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-action","tag-bit","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-creasy","tag-fire","tag-la","tag-livro","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-man","tag-mexico-city","tag-new-john-creasy","tag-new-place","tag-poe","tag-rayburn","tag-rio","tag-trust","tag-valeria-melo","tag-yahya-abdul-mateen-ii"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116492836678519050","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}