Patrick Chamusso is a foreman at a South African oil refinery during the apartheid era. Apolitical, obedient and deferential to his bosses, his life is turned upside down when the refinery is sabotaged and he is arrested by security officer Nic Vos (Tim Robbins) on suspicion of being a terrorist. Ashamed to admit he was visiting his mistress and their baby at the time of the bombing, he is imprisoned and tortured. Even worse, so is his wife, and the brutality of this is enough to turn him into the terrorist he was accused of being.
Director Phillip Noyce capably applies the polished technique of his '90s Hollywood action films to the sort of political material that has attracted him of late in "Catch a Fire." But the question nags as to what pressing need there is, 25 years after the fact, for a thriller that hinges on apartheid in South Africa when there are so many new pressing and pertinent political and cultural issues...
Full reviewComparisons to "Hotel Rwanda" make sense up to a point - both feature heroes who have the scales removed from their eyes - but "Fire" is no tearjerker, and here the story of Chamusso's conversion serves mainly as prologue to the main plot, a history-tinted cat-and-mouse policier in which he will attempt to finish the job he was wrongly accused of starting...
Full reviewRight off the bat, Catch a Fire distinguishes itself from other recent international productions about Africa (including The Constant Gardener and The Last King of Scotland) in that it is actually told from an African perspective...
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"Catch a Fire" avoids asking the toughest questions about terrorism and doesn't quite hit the peaks of a film like "Hotel Rwanda." But Luke is memorable as a man caught up in the horrors of apartheid...
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The young American actor (Derek Luke) gives such an intense, passionate performance as South African Patrick Chamusso that he just about dares you not to be involved with the tale he is telling...
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A timely reminder that oppression breeds terrorists and often the only difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is your perspective...
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It's clear where Noyce's sympathies lie, but he is too canny to paint Chamusso as a flawless hero or Vos as a cackling villain. What we get is a stark illustration of how an oppressive regime sows the seeds of its own destruction. Featuring excllent performances from Luke and Robbins, Catch A Fire is a mature, thought provoking film...
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