FORMER CIA counter-terrorist operative John Creasy (Denzel Washington) follows the advice of his trusted friend Rayburn (Christopher Walken) and moves to Mexico City to work as a private bodyguard.

A wave of kidnappings has swept through the city, instilling fear in the wealthier citizens, who are prime targets for extortion and blackmail.

In one six-day period alone, there are 24 abductions, some of which end in the death of the captive.

Creasy is hired by industrialist Samuel Ramos (Marc Antony) and his beautiful wife Lisa (Radha Mitchell) to protect their precocious nine-year-old daughter Pina (Dakota Fanning), an assignment which fills the American trained assassin with dread.

However, Creasy needs the money and so he tolerates the girl's pestering questions about his troubled past.

Pina's sweetness and childish innocence gradually wear Creasy down and the pair strike up a tender friendship. He even trains the youngster for a forthcoming school swimming competition.

When the nightmare happens, and Pina is abducted and then killed, Creasy swears vengeance and he makes it his life's work to track down the men responsible.

He vows to kill anyone who profits from the kidnapping of innocent men, women and children, even if that means getting himself killed into the process.

Based on AJ Quinnell's novel of the same name, which was originally set in Italy, Man On Fire is a film in two acts: an engrossing portrait of a broken man finding his way back to life through the eyes of a child; and a brutal revenge thriller.

Both parts are compelling in their own ways, anchored by Washington's affecting lead performance and another luminous supporting turn from Fanning, arguably the finest child actress around.

Screenwriter Brian Helgeland transplants Quinnell's story to Mexico City, where kidnapping has now become a way of life.

Director Tony Scott makes good use of the locations, contrasting the heavily polluted, crowded streets with the architectural richness of the city's quieter quarters.

He also sustains the tension well, despite the rather slow opening 30 minutes, picking up the pace gradually as Creasy's thirst for revenge increases with each kill.

Handheld camerawork creates a claustrophobic atmosphere, occasionally dissipated by Scott's penchant for unnecessarily showy photographic techniques including slow-motion blurring.

The violence is relentless, reaching a crescendo with the murder of a corrupt cop using a miniature bomb planted where the sun don't shine. Nasty.

See it at UCI, ABC