Brief Story Line
John Creasy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II - Wonder Man TV series, Aquaman etc) was a former Special Forces who was suffering from PTSD for few years. His old friend from military Paul Rayburn (Bobby Cannavale - Scarpetta TV series, Blonde etc) tried to make John better by employing him in a military work in Rio de Janeiro, doing protection from terrorist attack. Despite his reluctance, John decided to go ahead and met with Paul's family, including his teenage daughter Poe (Billie Boullet - A Small Light mini series etc).
Before his new work started, John was introduced to Paul's boss Prado Soares (Thomas Aquino - Boca a Boca TV series etc) and later local driver Valeria Melo (Alice Braga - Dark Matter TV series, Elysium etc) who would drive him around. Unfortunately everything went wrong with the sudden terrorist attack and John had to use all his experience to protect Poe at all cost. Things also became complicated with former John's co-worker in CIA Henry Tappen (Scoot McNairy - Speak No Evil, Sleepless etc) trying to convince him to return back to US.
So what would happen to them? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
I remembered about a movie back in 2004 with the same title starring Denzel Washington with Dakota Fanning and though I did not get the chance to see it in the cinema, I did watch it some time later. And the reason why I was intrigued with this series was because it was indeed based on the same novel from 1980 by A. J. Quinnel with that awesome full action movie adaptation. Obviously I had the same expectation and hoping for the same intensity. However it turned out the series was not as intense as I hoped would be.
The first episode was actually pretty good with a totally explosive scene that I really liked. Subsequently it was kind of interesting looking at John Creasy trying to put his PTSD behind and did his best to protect. But as the story progressed, I began to feel the pace a bit inconsistent. Although it only had 7 episodes, but I felt there were too many distracting side stories which made this less action packed than I expected. Without those, the season probably could have ended in a more fast paced 6 episodes. And besides, the Man on Fire that was embedded in my mind was a one man army, whereas this felt like an expanded group of people with same objective working together that kind of defeat the whole purpose. But then again, that is probably just my feeling cause audience and critics did not really seem to mind.
This series was created by Kyle Killen (developer of Halo TV series, writer of Fear Street Part One: 1994 etc) who also served as the show runner. From the ending, it looked like the series maker intended to have subsequent seasons, which should not be difficult considering there were 4 other novels featuring Creasy. But whether or not it's going to be renewed remains to be seen as nowadays it's difficult to guess on decision by Netflix. Btw the whole episodes run time were not too long with generally 40-49 minutes except the finale which was 59 minutes.
The story was set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but it was actually shot in Mexico city. There were few other additional cast in the series whom I think are generally Brazilian such as Billy Blanco Jr. (Rio Connection etc) as President Carmo, Pamela Germano as Melo's daughter Marena, Iago Xavier as Vico, Jefferson Baptista as Livro and several others. Aside from them, there were some guest stars like Paul Ben-Victor (The Wire TV series etc) as CIA Director Moncrief, Alex Ozerov-Meyer (Slasher TV series etc) as Ivan and few others. The star of the show was definitely Yahya Abdul-Mateen II who was pretty convincing in his role here. It was quite amazing looking at him playing lead in two different series recently with few movies to be released soon.
In the end, this was something that was OK enough as an action thriller. Despite still retaining some of its heavy violence, I do believe though that it could have been so much better if they make it a bit more action packed with less distracting side stories. I personally felt that focusing on John Creasy more on his fight against the villains while trying to overcome his PTSD/anxiety would be more effective here rather than sharing the focus with other parties. If they really renew this series, I hope they would do so to make it more entertaining. So if you are planning to see a renewed version of the awesome 2004 movie, then I think you would find it not really as expected. But if you have never seen previous adaptations, you might find this quite enjoyable. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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