Review: Catch a Fire (2006)

Catch a Fire
reviewed by Sam Osborn

Director: Phillip Noyce
Cast: Tim Robbins, Derek Luke
Screenplay: Shawn Slovo
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (thematic material involving torture and
abuse, violence and brief language)

Freedom is forwarded by the engine of inspiration. Without it, freedom
is only a word that, in the case of Catch a Fire, cannot be believed.
The film is a project mined from the same vein as last year's The
Constant Gardener, where a heavy-handed message sings overtones to a
rugged story of love and personal struggle. But in The Constant
Gardener, the chords of Justin Quayle's sorrow rang clearer than the
preachy notes of its plot on pharmaceutical corporations. Catch a Fire
fails to wrestle its political message into the backseat where it
belongs, and lets it suppress the more personal tale that would
otherwise inspire its message of freedom.

Derek Luke plays Patrick Chamusso, a young family man working at the
Secunda oil refinery in South Africa. It's 1980 and South Africa's
25 million blacks are tied down by the Apartheid and the ANC liberation
group is rising in power. Patrick wants nothing to do with liberation,
only wanting to make a comfortable home for his wife and two daughters.
But through a complicated sequence of events, Patrick's hands are
falsely put to a terrorist bombing at the Secunda plant. He's done
nothing wrong, but Nic Vos (Tim Robbins), the leader of South
Africa's Anti-Terrorist group, is convinced of his participation in
the attack. The misunderstanding reaches boiling point when Patrick's
wife is beaten and interrogated, causing his complacency with the
apartheid to snap. He leaves his family and runs to Mozambique where he
seeks out the ANC's recruitment headquarters. From there it's a cat
and mouse game, with Nic Vos (which is, by the way, one of the most
villainous names I can remember) and his steely-eyed glare chasing down
the vengeful Chamusso.

Director Phillip Noyce is no stranger to such heated political fare as
the South African apartheid. His previous two films were equally
message-oriented: the adaptation of the Graham Greene novel The Quiet
American, and the Australian film Rabbit-Proof Fence. And with Shawn
Slovo, the son of the true South African rebel, Joe Slovo, penning the
screenplay, Catch a Fire was bound to, at the very least, cause sparks
(excuse the pun). It's ironic then, that with so much experience
behind the picture, that Mr. Noyce and Mr. Slovo couldn't muster an
apartheid South Africa infuriating enough to inspire us to believe in
Patrick Chamusso's anger. Catch a Fire, oddly enough, plays it too
safe. The two characters, Nic Vos and Patrick Chamusso, are filled in
well enough-with family sub-plots and a wealth of character building
sequences. But none of it pulls focus on the harsh realities of the
apartheid and, thus, never plucks any of our heartstrings.

That's not to say Catch a Fire only blows smoke. Derek Luke and Tim
Robbins are veritable powerhouses that drive their characters harder
than the script ever tries. But performance is rarely enough and here
it falls short. No matter how hard Derek Luke can clench his fist to
the strumming ebbs of Bob Marley's reggae, we're still left
listless and cold when we should be seething with anger.
Rating: 2.5 out of 4
Sam Osborn