The kidnapping in Man on Fire doesn't appear to be political, like the Tupamaros' of Yves Montand in State of Siege, yet some mystery bigger than for-filthy-lucre lurks behind this one. Nor is there exactly a revolution and drugs overlay as in Proof of Life, either. What can it be, this that hints beyond the surface here?

Part of the answer is obvious early on -- the hero's rebirth -- while the twist part is a tad murky, convoluted à la The Big Sleep, delayed too long, sprung on us unfairly and that after a false hope with a second child hostage. Man on Fire, however, is fine action-intrigue, with an excellent varied cast that includes a good nine-year-old and a superstar who at last dares not to be straight-arrow but a plain old warted human being.

Cinema hostage taking has not had time to catch up with the immediate present's unfortunate blackmail variety, though other motivations have made this a well-tried plot device for years. Spanish secuestrar means both "kidnap" and "hijack," and there have been box office takings of whole buildings-, planes-, buses-, trains-, even subways-ful. More personal have been Hitchcock's two does of The Man Who Knew Too Much, three Ransom titles (one a remake), the lighter Romancing the Stone, two called Hostage, four distinct Spanish-language films named Secuestro, and a long filmography of often routine others. In unpublicized fact, director/co-producer Tony Scott's newest, a two-decade project, is actually itself a remake of a same-name 1987 Franco-Italian clinker from pseudonymous A.J. Quinnell's 1980 novel. Italy having cleaned up its act, the setting is shifted to standby Latin America, where a person is kidnapped every sixty minutes and seventy percent of them wind up dead. Specifically, to Mexico City, whose cacophony is captured with hand-cranked multiple cameras, reversal film stock and triple imprinting.

John W. Creasy (Denzel Washington) and Rayburn (Christopher Walken) had been buddies in CIA counter-terrorism. Though the suggestion is no more than a whiff, the impression lingers of mercenary killers-torturers. Finding true love, Rayburn married, had children, left his past behind and has prospered in Mexico and softened around the edges. In contrast, devastated by that past, which he hides, bearded baggaged Creasy has slid to rock bottom, an addiction to Jack Daniels, and the loss of self-confidence, so he is hesitant when his friend invites him south of the border and offers a new start as bodyguard for a nine-year-old.

Pita (Dakota Fanning) is the only child of wealthy Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) and his gringa wife Lisa (Radha Mitchell), who in emotional moments lapses into an Australian-Texas accent. Only later does one recall an early mumbled dialogue in which the husband's lawyer, Jordan Kalfus (Mickey Rourke), advises taking out ten-million dollars' kidnapping insurance, for attention immediately zeroes in on the relationship between the pampered lonely child and her new, physically and psychically scarred protector.

You just know the girl will get through to the inner self of the guarded, impersonal man. In a story and a Catholic setting in which family, especially children, is paramount even among thugs, family-less Creasy will be won over and smile, in great part by coaching his charge at swimming, in line with heavy-handed water-as-rebirth imagery throughout. Critically wounded while failing to protect her from kidnappers, he will re-define his commando skills to extract total, bloody revenge. God "will not forgive [Creasy and Rayburn] for what we've done," but forgiveness is a divine attribute, so he will arrange the bad guys' meeting Him.

The trade in hostages is lucrative and organized, its corrupt hand encompassing officialdom as well, so laying a bit low -- implausible for an imposing African-American in Mexico -- Creasy must loosely ally himself with an honest but hamstrung investigator (Giancarlo Giannini) and his ladylove reporter (Rachel Ticotin, who puzzlingly has never made it big). Depending on your gore quota, the line here is meant to be uplifting, as improbably but happily some dead are returned and a dead spirit is redeemed.

Until afterwards, if then, one overlooks the excessive turns and some inconsistencies, as a good cast delivers. Fortuitously, Walken's face and track record -- "I told Tony that I was fed up with playing bad guys!" -- led some viewers to place their suspicions there, while Rourke's trademark smirk may draw others' doubts in his direction (in a rôle at first considered for Walken). Whichever way one leans, despite its length and two somewhat mismatched halves, the film is exciting entertainment. 

(Released by 20th Century Fox and rated "R" for language and strong violence.)