My second viewing was at Mann's Chinese 6 on Friday night, and after the show there were these two African-American dudes in the men's room talking about it, and one of them said to the other, "One guy can do all that? Damn...I haven't seen this kind of ass-kicking in a long time." These guys were soaring. Frankly, so was I.

All the journalists I sat with during a round-table interview session at the junket on Friday afternoon were talking about this same thing. When Denzel sat down with us he said he hadn't seen the film with a crowd but had heard, also, about the cheering, presumably from journalists he'd spoken to earlier, or from his publicists.

And yet MAN ON FIRE is not as primitive as it sounds. It's been beautifully shot (by Paul Cameron), written, cut (by Christian Wagner), acted, massaged and finessed. It's a Tony Scott film with all his usual plush embroideries, but it's fundamentally a movie about guilt, love, loss and redemption. It's a machine movie with heart.

A manipulative, cranked-up genre pic all the way, MAN ON FIRE is nonetheless the most moving and mature film of Scott's career. When I shared this opinion with a friend on Tuesday, he said, "That's not saying much." But Scott touches emotional chords in this film that he's never gotten close to before.

The reason it plays so well, I feel, is that it thoroughly lays the foundation in terms of character and motivation before a single shot is fired.

The key is Scott's creating an emotional investment in the relationship between Creasy (Washington), an alcoholic, burnt-out Marine and a former counter-insurgency assassin who's come to Mexico City to visit an old colleague (and a former killer) named Rayburn (Christopher Walken), and Pita (Dakota Fanning), a spirited schoolgirl whose wealthy parents have hired him to protect her.

Scott spends the first 50 minutes just setting things up between Creasy and Pita before the inciting incident -- her kidnapping -- occurs, and this makes all the difference in the world.

By the time the heavy stuff begins the audience has been convinced that there's a time and a place in the great scheme of things for putting a timer, a detonator and plastic explosive up a bad guy's ass.

And yet this is a movie about a moral reawakening. It's about a dead man coming back to life. Creasy is lost in the beginning. His only lifelines are Jack Daniels and a Bible he keeps by his bedside. There's a moment ten minutes in when he asks Rayburn if they'll ever be forgiven for their sins, and Rayburn smiles warmly and says no. That's the set-up.

But Creasy's relationship with Pita (and I realize how sappy this may sound to some of you) eventually saves him, although he resists any kind of friendship with her initially. The pull of fatherly feelings lead to some measure of restoration for the guy. And what he finally does in order to save her when the chips are down (which involves more than just wasting the enemy) brings about a kind of moral symmetry and dignity.

The film is also enriched by a group of well-drawn supporting characters -- Walken's Rayburn, Pinta's parents (Radha Mitchell, Marc Anthony), a high-level Mexican cop (Giancarlo Giannini), a liberal journalist (Rachel Ticotin). Their input into the story and the furthuring of Creasy's arc helps to make it come together.

After seeing MAN ON FIRE at a junket-press screening last Thursday night (4.15), I wrote in the Word column that it's "far and away the best revenge movie in a long, long while...it makes you feel the juice better than any film of its type since DEATH WISH or DIRTY HARRY."

If my mentioning these iconic '70s films implies to some of you that Scott's movie is some kind of right-wing vigilante piece at heart, then maybe it is and shame on me, I suppose, because I'm an Al Franken-Oliver Stone leftie.

A leftie journalist friend who saw it a while ago has told me that she "had problems" with the third-act revenge section, partly, I gathered, because of what she took to be the film's implied political message, which is that Americans who feel intensely angry and vengeful have the moral right to massacre third-world bad guys with any kind of scorched-earth tactics they choose.

In other words, she felt George Bush and Dick Cheney echoes in Denzel's wrath. And I see her point, but I don't share her reaction. Because whatever this film is saying or not saying, it works.

One reason, I believe, is that underneath it all is some kind of 9.11 revenge thing.

MAN ON FIRE exploits a vague underlying attitude many people seem to harbor about wanting to make "them" suffer for making us all feel under siege and insecure, however reactionary or ill-considered this basic sentiment might be.

As far as the two audiences I saw it with seemed to be concerned, the villains in this film -- pseudo-terrorist kidnappers whose motives are obviously non-political -- represented the general rat-pack of international predators out there, and I was sensing real animal satisfaction in the house when Denzel started putting the medieval moves on these guys.

"Harsh" is not the word for what happens to them. And yet on some level it feels right, or at least deserved. As Walken's character says of Creasy before the rampage begins, "Death is his art, and he's about to paint his masterpiece."

What's going on here, exactly? NEW YORK PRESS film critic Matt Zoller Seitz put it pretty well when he wrote last week that the recent spate of revenge movies "are coded, half-involuntary responses to a post-9/11 world, and the fears of war, religious unrest, mass death and spiritual reckoning the [World Trade Center attacks] hatched.

"These movies are not precise or even outwardly purposeful, and none deals specifically with politics. But they are still movie dreams that work through real anxieties.

"What are dreams but deep subconscious responses to real-world anxieties and fears? They are mechanisms allowing the brain to work through and interpret life in a sub-rational, even irrational way - through images rather than words.

"Those dreams willed into creation by American cinema express unresolved tensions that have always existed in this country and probably always will.

"Look at films from any given decade and one senses the tensions between secular and religious impulses, between those who feel that violence can be justified, even moral, and those who think it's almost always a mistake; between those who believe the American status quo is essentially healthy versus those who are predisposed to think it's sick, dishonest or destructive."

I'd love to get some feedback on this from anyone who's seen MAN ON FIRE. I'll run whatever arrives in Friday's column.

All right, I'm not a fortune teller. Maybe women will stay away in droves and it'll top out in the 60 or 70 million range...who knows? But something truly exciting happened when it played before those audiences.

End note: There was a certain Nine Inch Nails track on the soundtrack that I couldn't get out of my head all last weekend. Scott uses the cut as a kind of anthem when Denzel goes out looking for hardware to wage war with. It's called "The Mark Has Been Made," and is off a 1999 Nine Inch Nails album called "The Fragile." I guess the only way to deal with this is to buy the CD and listen to the cut until I'm sick of it.

Maestro

If Tony Scott wanted to go there, he could be a superb director of all kinds of movies, and not just a Tiffany-level, big-budget action guy. The emotional current he delivers in MAN ON FIRE shows that he's got untapped range. (And perhaps rage.)

Call me an easy lay, but I'm sensing that at age 59, Scott has found something more substantial in himself than what his films have shown before.

There's nobody better at wham-bam, high-powered pulverizing, but a part of me wishes Scott would try a bit harder. Because when he ties into a good script, he da man.

He's made twelve features since over the last 21 years. Five of these, in my view, have been exceptional. TRUE ROMANCE ('93) and CRIMSON TIDE ('95) were first-rate, and ENEMY OF THE STATE ('98) and SPY GAME ('01) were riveting, above-average thrillers. MAN ON FIRE is, I feel, his finest.

Scott only just finished MAN ON FIRE last week, only hours before the showing last Thursday night, which I'm told was the first unveiling of the final completed print. A whole lotta honin' going on. Scott's post-production creed, he says, is to "tune, tune, tune until I die."

The emotional tone of the film, he said, was one of "darkness and bittersweet feeling.... going between the two extremes."

The big stylistic influence, he said, was Fernando Meirelles' CITY OF GOD. He ordered everyone in the cast and crew to watch it before shooting began. Scott said he was both "stealing" from this landmark Brazilian film "and doing my own thing" at the same time.

He doesn't see the revenge element in MAN ON FIRE, or at least he's not copping to it. For him the film works because of a basic emotional mechanism. "When this love [for Dakota Fanning's character] was taken away from Denzel, and from the audience as it were, I wanted to make them feel it," he says.

There's a third-act torture scene that I won't describe that the suits at 20th Century Fox "didn't want to include," he says. "But when it was tested, it turned out to be one of the most popular scenes."

Scott wanted to make MAN ON FIRE 20 years ago, but he "couldn't get arrested," he says, after making his feature debut with THE HUNGER, a super-stylish 1983 vampire film with Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon.

The film persuaded Hollywood that Scott's tendencies were too artsy-fartsy, and so his mid '80s version of MAN ON FIRE never got rolling.

Scott made TOP GUN instead. Not a bad career move.

MAN ON FIRE began life as an early '80s novel by A.J. Quinnell, who has made Creasy into an ongoing character and written a series of books about his adventures. The book was set in Italy, the kidnapping capital of the world in the late '70s or thereabouts. A 1987 feature version with Scott Glenn in the lead role was set there.

Scott and his producers decided to set MAN ON FIRE in Mexico City after realizing that the Italian kidnapping heyday was over and the action had shifted to Mexico and South America. (Guillermo del Toro's father was kidnapped in Mexico in 1997 or thereabouts, and it took a year or so to arrange for his safe return.)

Scott says he loved working in Mexico City, which he called "dark, teeming, dirty, alive... which Los Angeles is not and never will be."

His next film, he says, is TOM MIX AND PANCHO VILLA, based on a script by Steven Zallian. Based on truth, it's about Hollywood western star Tom Mix deciding to hang with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in 1916 in order to absorb atmosphere and verisimilitude for his westerns. He gets more than he bargained for, of course. The script starts in 1916 and ends in 1923, Scott says.

He says he doesn't know from editing software (Final Cut Pro, etc.) and goes so far as to call himself "computer illiterate." But he's worked for so long with editors Christian Wagner and Chris Lebenzon, he says, that the creative understanding they share is close to instinctual.

He says that Brian Helgeland's script, based on the Quinnel book, was punched up by Henry Bean, the writer-director of THE BELIEVER.

Radha Mitchell told our round table that Scott "had multiple cameras shooting every scene." Scott told me later his usual deal is to use two cameras when he's filming and occasionally three.

I can't end this piece without mentioning Scott's footwear. Last Friday at the Four Seasons hotel he was wearing the coolest pair of deer-brown North Face hiking boots my jaundiced eyes have ever beheld. What made them perfect, I decided, was Scott's having picked out his own bright yellow shoelaces. But this is what hot-shot directors do, isn't it? They know out how to make things look extra cool.

I guess I'm saying that from here on, Scott's task, given the potential shown in MAN ON FIRE, should be less about less about color coordination and more about the direction in which he'll be walking.

Passe by 2025

"I've got two votes for stars who won't be remembered regarded fondly by our grandchildren. On the male side, I've got to say that Adam Sandler's movies just aren't going to age well. Their formulaic plots, repetitive jokes, and Sandler's lack of range make them all pretty much the same. The success of sappy, soul-less comedies like BIG DADDY, MR. DEEDS, and even ANGER MANAGEMENT (never mind duds like BULLETPROOF) will surely be a mystery to the teenagers of tomorrow.

"I'm going out on a limb with my female pick, but stick with me on this one: Julia Roberts. Okay, I'll grant you that PRETTY WOMAN will probably be well-regarded as a good genre-pic many years from now, and ERIN BROCKOVICH certainly won't be looked down on, though that'll be as much for Soderbergh as for Roberts. But in between there's a stream of mindless, forgettable flicks whose charm (if there is any...) probably won't translate well in a quarter century.

"I'm talking here about movies like RUNAWAY BRIDE, AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS, and MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING, and even back to would-be thrillers like I LOVE TROUBLE, THE PELICAN BRIEF, and CONSPIRACY THEORY. She'll always have a place in Hollywood history for being the first real female big-bucks mega-star, but I bet future generations will glance at her filmography and wonder why." -- Vikram Weet

"Here are some nominations off the top of my head for stars whose reps will be flatlining or worse 20 years from now. There's no point in thinking deeply about this. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Josh Hartnett, Ben Affleck, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Julia Stiles, and Diane Keaton." -- Derrold Purifoy

Wells to Purrifoy: Diane Keaton? You're over-reacting to SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE.

"I agree that the Doris Day persona is a hermetically sealed product of that era -- not that it hasn't found a few analogies in modern movies -- but when you hit that stuff, every so often, in the right light, you get this kind of snow-globe view of one aspect of the Davy Crockett-Elvis-JFK transitional time.

"What makes the Doris Day thing interesting is how amazingly plasticine her pictures were, like some Bakelite/Tupperware/fiestaware aspect of the culture, but underneath it the very weird psycho-sexual confusion of that time, with all that screwball wink-wink gay-straight stuff. Day is perfect, but no, she doesn't translate. I wonder if she was all that likable even then?

"I suppose Mary Tyler Moore, Marlo Thomas and others of that ilk reworked her persona into America's vast sitcom-ateria. But where's a Horn & Hardart when you need one?" --H.C. Beck

"I won't argue about the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies being rather weird to watch these days: a nearly 40-something virgin being so protective of her virtue is something we're unlikely to be treated to again on the big screen.

"But some of Day's other performances hold up very well, particularly her evocation of the tough, alcoholic Ruth Etting in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (she unflinchingly stands up to James Cagney throughout the film, and it's one of the rare times Day would get to play someone who's not always nicey-nice). She's also charming when paired with James Garner in MOVE OVER, DARLING and especially in the oh-so-1963 satire THE THRILL OF IT ALL.

"And she's great as the headstrong union organizer in THE PAJAMA GAME, and turns in a thoroughly capable job as the woman-in-danger in JULIE, MIDNIGHT LACE and Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. So I have to disagree that her appeal is impossible to see 40 years after her commercial peak.

"Who among today's stars will be discounted in the future? I admit to having liked some of Adam Sandler's comedies, but I suspect his humor will not age well (sort of like most of Jerry Lewis' solo vehicles). Film students will probably be bewildered that the usually bland Ben Affleck and the laughably talent-free Ashton Kutcher landed so many leads in the early '00s; I know it's impossible to explain to some of my friends why the similarly non-descript Charlie Sheen and C. Thomas Howell were briefly considered hot stuff in the 1980s and early 1990s.

"And prior to MONSTER, I might have argued that Charlize Theron was going to be the Vera Miles of a new generation: someone who turns up frequently in films -- even in some very good ones -- but makes almost no lasting impression.

"It will be interesting to see if Jennifer Lopez ever turns in performances that live up to the superstar hype that constantly surrounds her. I'm guessing she's going to be regarded the same way Lana Turner is: someone whose career achievements were eclipsed by the scandals in her not-so-private life." -- James Sanford

"Bruce Willis, Bruce Willis, Bruce Willis. And Tom Cruise. And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"By 2025 nobody will get why these guys were ever popular. I've never gotten it myself. Those guys are decades overdue for the sandbagging that Kevin Costner and Ben Affleck have gotten.

"Who will become cooler with each passing decade? Travolta, despite all the crap films he's made. Samuel Jackson. Clint Eastwood. Billy Bob Thornton. Sean Connery, despite all the crap films he's made (though not as many as Travolta).

"Maybe Johnny Depp. Maybe Kurt Russell. Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, and Tommy Lee Jones, despite all the crap films they've made (though not as many as Travolta). Christopher Walken. Clive Owen. James Gandolfini." -- Steve Anderson

The Mystery of Bill

"I just finished reading your 'Quentin Crashes' piece on KILL BILL VOL. 2 and two thoughts immediately came to mind. First, I agree there's a definite tone change in the second movie and that it doesn't deliver as well as the first installment did.

"That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. It was a great watch and the graveyard scene was particularly intense. However, I did find myself glancing at my watch once or twice about halfway through and that's never a sign of a movie that has be completely absorbed.

"That brings me to my second thought. As this isn't a true sequel, really just the second half of a singular movie, should it be viewed and judged on its own merits? I understand that the studio is asking us to plunk down more dinero to sit through another movie so in some respects we should expect it to deliver as a stand alone piece, but when looking at it critically wouldn't it really be better to view Vol. 1 & 2 as one complete film?

"If we were to do this we might find that it delivers the complete package, albeit a lengthy package, and wouldn't feel that in the end it was only, as you aptly put it, 'Kool-Aid.' I'm very curious to see what your take is on the movie when viewed as a collective experience rather than as two separate ones. As for myself I'm going to put this to the test once both halves are out on DVD and I can use my home theater as God intended by watching them back-to-back." -- Dennis Pickett

"How could you miss so badly on KILL BILL, Vol. 2? I had the same reaction you did to the first one, so I was having trouble managing expectations when Rotten Tomatoes had it hovering around 100% all week.

"Then you were the first dissenting voice. I avoided reading the whole review until after I saw the movie, but now I'm wondering if you and I saw the same film.

"You're always complaining about CGI and wire-fu and all the other things making modern filmmaking so soulless. Then here comes a movie based on dialogue and characters, with a realistic, brutal and CGI-free fight scene, and you completely dump on it.

"I'll admit I was looking forward to Warren Beatty (who is probably kicking himself for ducking out of this film), but Carradine absolutely nailed it. It's perhaps his only truly good performance, and it is nothing short of brilliant. His scene with B.B. as Kiddo comes onto the patio really got to me. It was so unexpected in a movie of this type that it totally pulled the rug out from under me.

"And though you hated the goldfish scene, how cool was it when Carradine cut off the crusts of B.B.'s sandwich? Totally juxtaposes the innocous dialogue like you'd hear in any house with the chilling suspicion that this kid is a chip off the old block(s).

"It's got a lot of QT dialogue, but he tones it down to where it almost passes for realistic (in the QT universe). And it shows real heart, which is not something QT is known for.

"True, it's not the charge that Vol. 1 was, but as a compliment, it's damn near perfect. The credits bringing the whole thing full circle brought a huge smile to my face.

"You've seen it twice, so I won't belabor the point, but next time maybe you should see both films back-to-back. Put together, I really think this is one for the ages." -- Rich Swank

"I must disagree with your assessment that the SHOGUN ASSASSIN scene is meant to be a tender moment. I mean, sure...the reunion of the mother and daughter is meant to be tender. But I think it was also meant to show the lifestyle this girl was being raised in.

"I think the full meaning of the scene is only apparent when you consider it in relation to scene in the motel room, in which the girl is watching LOONEY TUNES, something the average kid watches." -- Josh Goldblatt, State College, PA.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling disappointed by KILL BILL, Vol. 2. While I respected Vol. 1 on an intellectual level, I couldn't help feeling that something was wrong. That feeling was crystallized by the ending title (paraphrasing), 'Bride character created by Q&U, which made me want to G.A.G.

"The film is so insular, so concerned with being cool and Quentin-y, that its attitude towards its characters becomes increasingly flippant as it goes along (i.e., the fish monologue), and losing momentum when it should be gaining it.

"Tarantino has finally outsmarted himself with KB2; maybe somebody performed the five-point palm exploding heart technique on the script... that would explain a lot. " -- Luis F. Carrasco

"I'm sorry to say this (because I really wanted to like this movie), but your take on KILL BILL 2 was 100% accurate.

"I did like Michael Madsen and Daryl Hannah's scenes and the punch-line to the Uma Thurman/Daryl Hannah's fight was perfect in it's simplicity. Otherwise the movie died a slow and painful death. Bill's Superman speech was idiotic and left me wondering if Tarantino's best writing is behind him.

"How so many critics found this film to be brilliant and a near-masterpiece (or however they actually put it) is beyond me. And I love both Tarantino and Kung Fu movies.

"I don't think the film will have much of a second weekend. The audience I saw it with didn't even clap at the end. A real shame." -- Dan Pridachin, Philadelphia, PA.

"I'm sure you're getting a lot of flack about yoru KILL BILL 2 review, but I just have to say that all nine different people I've talked to agree with you, plus fell cheated for such an okay second half. I've dreamt of watching both parts as a single, but now I can't imagine ever watching Volume 2 again.

Quentin got way outta control on this one, had five hours of movie that couldn't be edited down, and then maybe Harvey came up with a plan of cutting together one great action film, with plenty of questions unanswered to keep you hanging. Then by the time you've spent your money, it's too late." -- Pauly Funk

Split Decision

"Dunno what kind of weed you were puffin' on when you saw THE PUNISHER, but I'd love some. It sucked! I actually walked out. I seem to be doing that more often. Maybe I've seen too many movies and I just can't stand crap anymore.

"But you were right on with KILL BILL 2. It wasn't good. It felt like it was almost all backstory ....although it did seem a bit more interesting when the guy sitting in front of me, who seemed more interested in looking at the audience instead of the movie, turned out to be the Big Tarantino himself.

"At least I still have MAN ON FIRE to look forward too. God, I hope it doesn't turn out bad. Tony Scott is kinda like David Fincher.....he may not always have the tightest story or deepest characters but they both always make it look cool and keep you wanting to know what happens next." -- Alexander Krycek

Konged

"I read your response about my remarks on your King Kong screed. It was an interesting analogy, I thought, when you emphasized that your complaints were not about Jackson having killed your dog, because it's so apt.

"That's because you've written about Jackson' KING KONG as if Jackson was and is, in fact, metaphorically killing your dog by making a new film based on the original KONG. You've adopted the original Kong as your soft and fuzzy pet, and you don't want him supplanted in anyone's affection or replaced by the big mean new dog.

"I would suggest that the original KONG is quite safe. I would also suggest that Jackson not make an art-house Kong for the delectation of the film history buffs. Jackson should do what the original film makers did -- use the best current technologies and processes to make the best fantasy film giant ape movie that he can make." -- Michael Benedetti