Netflix’s ‘Man on Fire’ has no heat

When I first heard Netflix was making a new adaptation of Man on Fire, I thought to myself that this would probably be another unnecessary reboot but I kept an open mind. This was mostly because of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Having seen his performances in films like The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Candyman, I’ve come to regard Mateen as one of the most underrated leading men in Hollywood. Earlier this year, he starred in the Marvel series Wonder Man, which I absolutely loved. It took full advantage of Mateen’s natural charisma and his chemistry with Ben Kingsley, resulting in a show that felt more like a buddy comedy than a conventional superhero origin story. It was with this in mind that I fired up Netflix to see Mateen’s latest performance. Man on Fire drops us into the action immediately, as we first meet Mateen’s John Creasy during a tactical operation in Mexico City. Things go terribly wrong and Creasy is forced to watch his comrades get executed. Cut to four years later: Creasy is an alcoholic, struggling with PTSD and soon attempts to end his own life by ramming his car into a wall. While recovering in hospital, he’s approached by his old friend Paul Rayburn (Bobby Cannavale), who recruits him for a security job in Brazil and offers him a place to stay. Not long after Creasy arrives, Rayburn and most of his family are killed when a bomb detonates in their building. The only survivor is Poe Rayburn (Billie Boullet), Paul’s 16-year-old daughter, leaving Creasy as the closest thing she has to family in a foreign country. All this unfolds in the first episode. From there, the plot expands in increasingly wild directions. Without venturing into spoiler territory, the story pulls in a crowded ensemble of players: the Brazilian president and his head of security, a domestic terror group, the CIA and various gang factions in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. What begins as a revenge story quickly shapeshifts into a political thriller and at one point even veers into heist