Now that America’s collective sense of victimization has been massaged to the point of blistering, can we please, please, please put this tiresome trend to rest?

“Man On Fire,” the latest rampaging revenge fantasy to clobber its way into theaters in recent weeks, is also the most malicious and hollowly sensationalistic. Starring Denzel Washington (“Training Day”) as a born again bodyguard inflamed by the kidnapping and murder of his young protectee (Dakota Fanning of “I Am Sam”), it’s nothing but an over-directed, over-sentimentalized excuse for cramming yet more bloody justice down America’s dangerously over-stuffed gullet.

That this latest wave of cinematic vigilantism is rooted in the country’s struggle with terrorism is almost beyond debate. Like his counterparts in “The Punisher” and “Walking Tall,” John Creasy (Washington) is a former Special Forces operative and veteran of several taxing anti-terrorist campaigns. Haunted by the brutal things he’s seen and done, Creasy prefers Jack Daniels to the company of people and spends his nights in a drunken haze, sparring with his demons. Tony Scott (“Enemy of the State”) is the director and, as always, appears to have hired a near-sighted epileptic to be his cameraman.

By and by, Creasy (it sounds like “crazy” when the other characters say it) finds something better than booze to sooth his wounded psyche: The love and friendship of Pita Ramos (Fanning), the adorable half-Mexican, half-
American daughter of a Mexico City industrialist (Latin pop star Marc Anthony) who hires Creasy to protect the girl. A rash of gang-related kidnappings — masterminded by a shady character known only as “the Voice” — has put the girl's mother (Radha Mitchell from “Pitch Black”) on edge, and Creasy, with his alcoholic tendencies, comes cheap. The movie is loosely based on a novel by A.J. Quinnell, itself loosely based on a string of real-life kidnappings in Mexico.

Initially cool to Pita’s entreaties of friendship, Creasy is quickly warmed by her precocious and open-minded nature. “What’s your favorite kind of music?” the blonde moppet asks and Creasy, so numb with emotional scar-tissue, doesn’t immediately know. Later, he picks up a Linda Ronstandt CD at the market and plays it in his studio. “Blue Bayou.” The ballad of healing.

Soon, Creasy is all smiles, helping Pita with her freestyle swim times and reading the Bible. She gives him an amulet of St. Jude, “the patron saint of lost causes.” With her pure, unblemished goodness, she shows him how to live again. Later, an old Army buddy of Creasy's, played by Christopher Walken, helpfully reiterates: “She showed him it was OK to live again.” Just so we get that straight.

Creasy’s special friendship with Pita would be a lot more touching and soul-warming if we didn’t know — quite consciously — that director Scott is using it as pretext for Creasy to go postal. And go postal he does, furiously avenging himself on Pita’s abductors with not a whit of compunction or pity. One corrupt cop gets his fingers lopped off, then cauterized by a cigarette lighter to prevent him from passing out. No Linda Ronstandt this time, but a twangy Stevie Ray Vaughn guitar solo. The ballad of arse-kicking.

Further impeding our sympathies is Scott’s laughably gratuitous, sports-car-commercial directing style, intoxicated with artful over-exposures and smash-cuts. At precisely the movie’s most emotionally pivotal moments, it appears Scott wants our attention focused on him, not his actors. The cheeky egomaniac.

Other, smaller details disturb. Like the fact that Creasy gets shot in the chest so many times that it evidently stops hurting him. Or how a Mexican federal cop (Giancarlo Giannini) and a crusading newspaper reporter (Rachel Ticotin) not only overlook the fact that an American is running roughshod over their justice system, but cheer him on. We wish. As if to perfume their depiction of Mexico City as a corrupt, crime ridden hellhole, Scott and his producers tack on a dedication, calling it “a very special place.” Good one, fellas.

One must wonder: Is Pita — the pretty, smart, defenseless princess hi-jacked by swarthy evil-doers — how America sees itself? It’s almost insulting, but not half so much as the dramatically convenient, 11th hour revelation — and I’ll try not to give away screenwriter Brian (“A Knight’s Tale”) Helgeland’s secrets here — that Creasy's personal vendetta was enacted under false assumptions. To put it in more topical terms, there are no weapons of mass destruction, but Creasy goes to war anyway.