‘Man on Fire’ Review: Yahya Abdul-Mateen’s Netflix Series Never Sparks

In a very loose adaptation of A.J. Quinnell's 46-year-old novel (and a cherry-picked remake of Tony Scott's 22-year-old film), the new Netflix series follows a depressed ex-mercenary who finds renewed purpose in protecting an orphaned girl.

Be it Denzel Washington’s vulnerable portrayal of an invulnerable avenger, Tony Scott’s kinetic, ahead-of-its-time direction, or two decades of regular airings across Turner cable networks, “Man on Fire” has carved out a space of its own in aughts-era, man-stream cinema. People know it. People like it. People would probably show up for a sequel, if not for the pesky problem that (spoiler alert) John Creasy could not.

Enter the modern solution: a made-for-streaming remake. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II takes over for Washington, Steven Caple Jr. (“Creed II”) takes over for Scott, and Netflix takes over for TNT. Aside from some bland staging, the principals aren’t the problem. “Man on Fire” comes saddled with the now-standard hitches of most two-hour movies expanded into hours-long TV seasons: It rips off enough of what came before to remind audiences why they liked the original, but it never illustrates a clear understanding of what made that adaptation work, let alone enough innovation, inspiration, or basic storytelling investment to justify its own existence.

What’s left is less of a roaring action flick and more of a recurring nostalgic flicker.

The Netflix series officially adapts the same A.J. Quinnell book that inspired the 2004 movie (as well as its filmic predecessor, a straight-to-video version from 1987 starring Scott Glenn), but it unofficially aims to hook the same audiences who’ve trained their algorithm to surface Denzel’s action movies. (Not coincidentally: “Man on Fire,” the movie, was taken off Netflix at the end of March, leaving “Man on Fire,” the TV show, all its search traffic.)

That means John Creasy is back, depressed as ever, and “Man on Fire” wastes no time explaining why: When the series starts, Creasy leads a mission that goes sideways. All his buddies are killed, and the lone survivor returns home to be haunted by their memories. He sleeps with a bag over his head (motivated more for its quirkiness than a concrete narrative reason), and dreams of his lethal mistakes. Surprisingly, that and a lonely warehouse job aren’t enough to improve his mental health. Before the opening credits roll, Creasy smashes his car into a concrete barrier.

When he comes to, an old friend and new savior is at his bedside. Paul Rayburn (Bobby Cannavale) has everything Creasy doesn’t: a sense of humor, a job he’s proud of, and a loving family. So when Paul offers Creasy a spot on his security team and a bed in his lavish home, it’s the fresh start our lost mercenary didn’t know he needed. Sure, it requires relocating to Rio de Janeiro, but Creasy isn’t exactly leaving anything (or anyone) behind.

His mind-and-body revival is expedited when Paul’s daughter, Poe (Billie Boullet), witnesses a deadly bombing and turns to Creasy for protection. They go into hiding, where they’re forced to ask for help from a kind cab driver named Melo (Alice Braga) who turns out to be well-connected in Brazil’s gang community. She steers them toward Livro (Jefferson Batista), a quiet kid who’s bullied by his older brother and lost among his tough-talking friends, as well as Vico (Iago Xavier), who takes Livro under his wing while working his way into Melo and Creasy’s good graces. Together, they’ll find out who was behind the bombing in a mystery that leads them to the highest offices of government.

Yawn. “Man on Fire” puts together a few decent fights and shows off several lush South American locales, but it struggles to maintain momentum as it shuffles through its predictable plot. To distinguish itself from all the other renegade action shows out there, showrunner Kyle Killen echoes his project’s cinematic predecessor, albeit with hollow results. We already know Abdul-Mateen can handle richer drama (“Watchmen”) and stronger action (“The Matrix Resurrections”) than what he’s responsible for here, and there’s little thrill to seeing him step into Denzel’s shoes when the script runs away from an earnest, or even relatable, depiction of Creasy’s demons.

Despite his somber introduction, this version of Creasy doesn’t earn the character’s darker choices. The back-half of Scott’s film is filled with vivid torture scenes driven by an ugly but pure rationale: Pita, the girl Creasy cared for, is dead. The light she brought back to his life is gone. So he gives into the darkness and burns down the world. More specifically, he saws off a dude’s fingers and cauterizes the stubs with a cigarette lighter. He plants an explosive device inside a guy’s asshole. He convinces Pita’s father, who organized her kidnapping in order to steal the ransom money, to kill himself.

These scenes are shocking (and, given how many nameless Mexicans are gleefully butchered, a wee bit racist), but they also illustrate Creasy’s backslide. He’s becoming more like the man who committed the unnamed actions that torment him today, and less like the man who taught Pita to swim, drove her to school, and made her laugh. The TV version replicates them, I assume, because viewers expect to see them. But they don’t really fit.

Here, Creasy’s brutality is framed as a positive. He’s getting back into shape after losing his edge during all those years of misery. Cutting off a guy’s finger and stitching a tiny bomb into someone’s chest is essentially the same as remembering how to put together a gun or outrunning a horde of bad guys. Sure, he’s driven by vengeance and ruthless in his pursuit, but — without spoiling anything — his motivation is clouded at best, misplaced at worst. The girl is not dead. His chance at a better life is not gone. Even when his violent tendencies are toned down, he’s still the cruelest person onscreen when he’s supposed to be heroic.

Abdul-Mateen’s Creasy isn’t the same as Washington’s Creasy, and pretending they are does the show a disservice. Netflix’s “Man on Fire” tries to cop the movie’s scorched-earth attitude without justifying where it stems from. In doing so, it wastes its lead’s talents, and snuffs out its I.P.’s brightest embers. Any future remakes won’t be drawing from this fire.

Grade: C-

“Man on Fire” premieres Thursday, April 30 on Netflix. All seven episodes will be released at once.