{"id":698,"date":"2026-04-30T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/04\/30\/man-on-fire-review-yahya-abdul-mateen-ii-makes-friends-and-tortures-enemies-in-netflixs-uninspired-revenge-thriller\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T07:01:00","slug":"man-on-fire-review-yahya-abdul-mateen-ii-makes-friends-and-tortures-enemies-in-netflixs-uninspired-revenge-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/04\/30\/man-on-fire-review-yahya-abdul-mateen-ii-makes-friends-and-tortures-enemies-in-netflixs-uninspired-revenge-thriller\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Man on Fire\u2019 Review: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Makes Friends and Tortures Enemies in Netflix\u2019s Uninspired Revenge Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\t \t \t\t<\/svg>\t\tLogo text<\/span> \t<\/a> <\/p>\n

\tIt\u2019s hard for men of a certain age to make new friends.<\/p>\n

\tDon\u2019t believe me? Ask HBO\u2019s DTF St. Louis<\/a><\/em>, in which the quest for a simpatico bro very quickly comes to involve murder, infidelity and Jamba Juice. It\u2019s a very long way to go for the characters played by Jason Bateman and David Harbour just to find a fellow dude willing to go on recumbent biking trips or share workout tips, but the result is one of the spring\u2019s best TV shows. <\/p>\n

\n
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\t \t \t\t \t\t\t\t\tMan on Fire\t\t \t <\/h3>\n

The Bottom Line<\/span> \t\t\t\t\t \t \tTurns a monomaniacal payback story into a slack team-up thriller. \t<\/span> \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Airdate: <\/strong>Thursday, April 30 (Netflix)
Cast: <\/strong>Yahya Abdul Mateen, Billie Boullet, Bobby Cannavale, Alice Braga, Scoot McNairy, Paul
Ben-Victor
Creator: <\/strong>Kyle Killen
\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span> \t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tIn Netflix<\/a>\u2018s Man on Fire<\/a><\/em>, Special Forces-trained mercenary John Creasy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II<\/a>) finds an even more unorthodox pretext for assembling a group of chums for cooking montages, long walks by the Brazilian beach and personal salvation: extrajudicial revenge. \t<\/p>\n

\tIn the seven-episode semi-adaptation of A.J. Quinnell\u2019s novel, John Creasy learns that the best revenge truly is the friends we made along the way.<\/p>\n

\tThis is sure to be perplexing for fans of the 1980 book or two previous adaptations, in which the highly trained and unrepentantly brutal Creasy was played by Scott Glenn and Denzel Washington. At the core of the story is the certainty that revenge, while occasionally satisfying on a gut level, is corrosive to the soul and not, in fact, a reliable way to meet lifelong pals.<\/p>\n

\tPerhaps previous adapters were simply more inward-looking and less franchise-driven than Kyle Killen<\/a>, creator and writer of Netflix\u2019s series. There\u2019s little in this Man on Fire<\/em> that will speak to the small subset of viewers who loved Killen\u2019s short-lived Lone Star<\/em> and Awake<\/em>, but there\u2019s a lot that will appeal to the far larger set of viewers who loved shows like The Night Agent<\/a><\/em> and two-thirds of the recent dramas on Amazon. \t<\/p>\n

\tThis Man on Fire<\/em> isn\u2019t designed to be a complex, brutal, nihilistic portrait of vigilantism and violence. It\u2019s a weirdly upbeat, disappointingly bland set-up for an ongoing series about a damaged mercenary and his unlikely, poorly developed Scooby Gang. Accepted on those limitedly aspirational and rarely convincing terms, but few others, it succeeds.<\/p>\n

\tWe\u2019re introduced to Abdul-Mateen\u2019s Creasy at the tail end of a Mexico City operation to do\u2026dunno. Doesn\u2019t matter. He\u2019s running an operation with a small group of fellow mercenaries, men he\u2019s clearly close to, even if the five-minute opening isn\u2019t enough time to get a feeling for what sort of friends these guys are \u2014 much less the sort of man Creasy is or was before the operation goes pear-shaped and all of Creasy\u2019s men are killed.<\/p>\n

\tFour years later, Creasy is haunted. In a handy montage \u2014 Man on Fire <\/em>is packed with handy montages \u2014 we see that Creasy\u2019s life is a steady routine of nightmare-drenched sleep, day-drinking and disinterested labor in a warehouse job. Imagining an eternity of this, Creasy disables his car\u2019s braking system and drives into a concrete pylon.<\/p>\n

\tWhen Creasy wakes up, he\u2019s in a hospital bed and his long-time mentor, friend and colleague-in-the-trenches Paul Rayburn (Bobby Cannavale) is by his side. Rayburn says he needs a man like Creasy \u2014 Alcoholic? Suicidal? Suffering from debilitating PTSD? \u2014 to join him down in Brazil, where he\u2019s handling security on the eve of an election plagued by escalating terrorist threats. \t<\/p>\n

\tSo it\u2019s off to Rio, accompanied by what Netflix\u2019s subtitling calls \u201cpensive Brazilian conga music\u201d (because John Creasy isn\u2019t ready for a playful samba). Everybody, including the president\u2019s stern chief of security (Thomas Aquino), is skeptical of Creasy\u2019s preparedness for the job, but Paul welcomes Creasy to multiple dinners with his family, including sullen teenage daughter Poe (Billie Boullet).<\/p>\n

\tIt doesn\u2019t take long for Something Bad to happen and for Creasy to be put on a path for revenge, reluctantly accompanied by Poe and an assortment of supporting Brazilian characters, including ride share driver Melo (Alice Braga<\/a>); her sensitive cousin from the favela, Livro (Jefferson Baptista); bullying mid-level gang member Vico (Iago Xavier); and, from back in the States, Henry Tappan (Scoot McNairy), a CIA official who previously partnered with Creasy and Paul. They\u2019re all immersed in a multi-layered conspiracy, but really they\u2019re getting to know each other and staging elaborate heists and infiltrations in the name of revenge. As you do.<\/p>\n

\tNetflix\u2019s Man on Fire <\/em>is neither an exact adaptation of the book\/movies nor a sequel or prequel. It\u2019s better described as \u201csomething with some of the same vibes as the previous properties.\u201d There\u2019s the brooding, damaged Creasy, who confusingly passes out at inopportune moments owing to his trauma; an international setting (Italy in the book and first film, Mexico City in the 2004 movie); and a young woman who breaks through his defenses and teaches him to feel again. But the actual plot and nature of the revenge are new \u2014 or \u201cnew,\u201d because it would be foolish to think anything in Man on Fire<\/em> is fresh. \t<\/p>\n

\tMan on Fire<\/em>, originally ordered as eight episodes and feeling both over-extended and rushed at seven, becomes a string of proficient-yet-forgettable set pieces orchestrated by the directors \u2014 Creed II<\/a><\/em> helmer Steve Caple Jr. handles the first two episodes \u2014 in one abandoned warehouse setting after another, eventually making room for a home invasion, a prison break and more, without ever becoming distinctive. The series was shot in Mexico and Brazil, but too often that just means \u201cWe\u2019ve got a drone shot of the favelas!\u201d or \u201cDon\u2019t forget that Rio has pretty beaches!\u201d Too many recent thrillers have used South and Central American locations better for me to list them all; ditto recent thrillers that have had meaningful things to say about their South and Central American settings beyond \u201cSometimes Americans meddle in international politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThere are a few fight scenes, with Abdul-Mateen nailing a style that seems to be \u201crusty but lethal,\u201d plus lots of torture that might make you cringe if you\u2019re squeamish about such things. But nothing lingers. As I thought back over the sequences in which Creasy pummels assorted Brazilian civilians strapped to chairs and whatnot, I tried to remember anything specific he got out of them (not that Man on Fire<\/em> is making any sort of moral point about enhanced interrogation). Sometimes torture is just cool, like walking away from an exploding building in slo-mo, something Creasy does without irony. Just as it\u2019s apparently cool when Creasy sets bad guys on fire and quips, \u201cWho\u2019s the man on fire now, sparky?\u201d (For clarity, he does the former, but does not say the latter.) \t<\/p>\n

\tIt\u2019s just that Creasy doesn\u2019t offer much else. Killen\u2019s construction of the season one arc doesn\u2019t let the character show off any plausible ingenuity or expertise. Every once in a while he\u2019s just like, \u201cYeah, I sewed an explosive device into your chest and I have a detonator\u201d and you\u2019re just supposed to be like, \u201cSure you did, John Creasy,\u201d rather than wondering why we weren\u2019t given any indication of how he did it or what talents he possesses. Abdul-Mateen\u2019s performance is perpetually glum, but insufficiently monomaniacal, lowering the stakes throughout.<\/p>\n

\tThat\u2019s something you have to sacrifice if you want to make it believable that a motley crew of Brazilian randos would form around Creasy. Man on Fire<\/em> doesn\u2019t really do that either. The assembling of the team is arbitrary, as are their skill sets. They\u2019re just available and willing to help.<\/p>\n

\tAs much as I appreciated that there was no attempt to shoehorn a romantic subplot into the story for Braga\u2019s Melo, she\u2019s merely a convenient way for Creasy to meet other Brazilians, present but entirely lacking in personality. Boullet\u2019s Poe is, unfortunately, even worse, just the latest in an apparently endless string of prestige cable teens who exist only to be placed in inopportune jeopardy. She isn\u2019t worse than the Kim Bauer\/Dana Brody archetype, but nobody ever tried saying Kim Bauer or Dana Brody were the leads in 24 <\/em>\u307e\u305f\u306f Homeland<\/em>, while Poe is the second biggest role in Man on Fire <\/em>and yet adds almost nothing. I don\u2019t even think the Tony Scott movie is very good, but darned if Dakota Fanning doesn\u2019t give a performance that makes you understand how this one little girl could have helped John Creasy temporarily feel human again. \t<\/p>\n

\tMcNairy and Cannavale both give the impression of showing up on set and being Scoot McNairy and Bobby Cannavale, which isn\u2019t a bad thing because both actors always class up whatever joint they\u2019re in. But they could have swapped roles without changing either role or the overall quality of the show. They\u2019re not inherently fungible actors, but insufficient writing was done to make either break a sweat.<\/p>\n

\tMy two favorite performances come from Baptista and Xavier, young actors I\u2019ve never seen before and the only two playing characters whose arcs aren\u2019t wholly predictable.<\/p>\n

\tIt doesn\u2019t feel spoiler-y to say that Man on Fire<\/em> sets itself up for future seasons, but it\u2019s harder to tell which parts of Creasy\u2019s crew will be back.<\/p>\n

\tI just hope he remembers this valuable lesson: Revenge is a dish best served with an accompanying caipirinha and a table full of friends.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logo text It\u2019s hard for men of a certain age to make new friends. Don\u2019t believe me? Ask HBO\u2019s DTF St. Louis, in which the quest for a simpatico bro very quickly comes to involve murder, infidelity and Jamba Juice. It\u2019s a very long way to go for the characters played by Jason Bateman and David Harbour just to find a fellow dude willing to go on recumbent biking trips or share workout tips, but the result is one of the spring\u2019s best TV shows. Man on Fire The Bottom Line Turns a monomaniacal payback story into a slack team-up thriller. Airdate: Thursday, April 30 (Netflix)Cast: Yahya Abdul Mateen, Billie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[376,2,377,378,93,85,375,379],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alice-braga","category-hollywood","category-kyle-killen","category-man-on-fire","category-netflix","category-tv","category-tv-reviews","category-yahya-abdul-mateen-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}