must kill everyone involved in the actual snatch and botched pay-off attempt— even the
exchange, corrupt. Pinta (the word in Spanish identifiable with “painted woman”—see
IMDB’s “Man on Fire (2004) / Trivia” for the film) becomes Pita (from Lupita), played
ably, critics generally feel, by Dakota Fanning, and, as in 1987, she is saved. But here,
importantly, only through the sacrifice of Creasy, who volunteers to die in her stead,
having truncated his quest for revenge. The film, a visually powerful wash of grainy
colors and quick cuts and explosions’ dazzle, becomes a sort of psychedelic, secular
passion play, Creasy dying for the sins world. As Creasy’s buddy Rayburn (the Guido
figure in this version, played with assurance by Christopher Walkin) allegorizes the
gore, Creasy is painting his masterpiece of bloodshed, all the victims sacrificed so that
the revenger can again be pure, at least in his intent. (Interestingly, Kerrigan’s thorough
study of revenge tragedy notes that the Renaissance revenger, as well, is seen as a
kind of artist, assembling a plot that achieves his desires—see 17, 19.) As close as
this Creasy comes to joining a waiting lover as reward is his winning the respect of
Pita’s mother, once she sees he is on the side of the angels.
This sacrificial mood is picked up by many critics. David Ng in The Village Voice
labels the violence “Christian Retribution.” Stephany Zacharek, though quarreling with
the film’s message, writes that Scott has intended a moral film. Even the website of the
US Conference of Catholic Bishops notes the weight of religious iconography
(“crucifixes, votive candles, and Madonnas”) and the film’s sacrificial allegory based in
Creasy’s “last-minute redemption” (“Man on Fire” oldusccb.org)
Paul Davies, writing in a collection delving evil portrayed in the arts, offers an
extended theological interpretation of the film, rooting his explication in a section from
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