Man on Fire

A thriller without a spark of imagination. As he is zipped into a body-bag, ex-CIA agent Creasy (Glenn) recalls how he was hired to babysit Sam (Malle), 12-year-old daughter of an Italian businessman. Sam's a cute kid, but she reminds him (in slo-mo flashback) of a dead child in war-torn Beirut. So he wants out, but things pick up when she compares him with Lenny in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, then serenades him with 'Someone to Watch Over Me'. Of course she gets kidnapped by reptilian criminals anyway; but with a subtlety typical of the film, he crashes a cement-mixer into the kidnappers' hideout and dies - or does he? - in his rescue bid. Borrowing wholesale from Scorsese, this inept thriller adds insult to injury with a risible voice-over, a sickly soundtrack, atrocious dubbing (though 'filmed in English'), and corny freeze frames.