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 territory.

Mateen’s performance exists within a story that has a long and varied history. 

Like many people, my first introduction to Man on Fire was the 2004 film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Denzel Washington alongside Dakota Fanning and Christopher Walken. The plot there was simple: a burnt-out former CIA agent is hired to protect a girl in Mexico City, only to embark on a brutal revenge spree after she’s kidnapped. 

“Forgiveness is between them and God,” Creasy says to a Catholic priest in one memorable scene. “It’s my job to arrange the meeting.”

That version delivered the visceral thrills you’d expect but it also had a surprising emotional weight. Scott’s direction, combined with Washington’s deeply committed performance, gave the story a soulfulness that elevated it beyond standard revenge fare. 

We were placed firmly inside Creasy’s fractured psyche, with bold editing and music choices that blurred the line between memory and reality. It’s also worth noting that the film was the second adaptation of AJ Quinnell’s 1980 novel, following an earlier 1987 version starring Scott Glenn.

Each iteration has shifted the setting — Italy, Mexico and now Brazil — and adjusted key elements of the story. Here, Poe is older and instead of being kidnapped, she survives a bombing that wipes out her entire family. 

Beyond that, the Netflix series feels almost like a different property altogether, more interested in political intrigue and sprawling conspiracy than in the focused emotional drive of vengeance. Across seven episodes, Creasy and Poe’s search for answers leads them through a tangled web of competing interests and shadowy figures.

Is this latest version any good? I have to be honest: overall, I didn’t like it. It’s predictable, riddled with clichés and stretches a story that could have been told in four tight episodes instead of seven meandering ones. 

The most disappointing aspect is how thoroughly Mateen’s natural charisma, so present in Wonder Man, is buried under layers of stoicism and trauma.

The series shows little interest in giving us meaningful access to Creasy’s interior life or in developing the emotional core of the story: his relationship with Poe. 

Large stretches separate the two characters entirely, making their arcs feel like parallel tracks rather than a shared journey. Even when they do reunite, often alongside a rotating cast of misfits, the show never finds its footing. It drifts, unsure of what story it wants to tell or which tone it wants to commit to.

The lack of focus might have been forgivable if the action sequences carried more weight but even those feel surprisingly pedestrian. 

For a series built on violence, vengeance and high-stakes tension, the choreography and execution rarely rise above the level of routine TV spectacle.

In trying to reinvent Man on Fire as a sprawling political thriller, this adaptation loses sight of what made the story compelling in the first place: intimacy, emotional clarity and a singular sense of purpose. 

There are flashes of a better show buried within, mostly in the casting of Mateen but they’re never fully realised. 

Instead, what we’re left with is a series that feels overextended, undercooked and forgettable.