Catch a Fire

Viewer Rating:martin has rated Catch a Fire rating: 2 Star

Australian director Philip Noyce's film about South African apartheid is a noble story based on actual events, that suffers from an elementary treatment but distinguishes itself immediately from the recent raft of Afro-centered stories,being told from a black African point of view. Set in a divided South Africa in the 1980's, Derek Luke plays real-life hero Patrick Chamusso. While working as a foreman at an oil refinery Patrick is falsely accused of blowing it up. His rough treatment at the hands of the authorities forces him to re-evaluate his attitude to apartied and puts him on a path to militancy, terrorism and the struggle for freedom. Tim Robbins plays the policeman Nic Vos determined to track him down. When finally arrested and interrogated by the cruel Vos, an anti-terrorism expert. Patrick is tortured and kept for weeks in a remote camp, but eventually he is released. Patrick's tranformation from apolitical everyman to committed freedom fighter is the most interesting aspect of the film. Once that groundwork is achieved, the film becomes a beat-the-clock thriller, an extended chase sequences that relies on the cliches of the genre for narrative power. Noyce, who has a couple of Tom Clancy adaptations on his resume, falls back into simplifications when the story deserves better. This film is though quite interesting as it charts how oppression gradually transformed a man from pacifist to terrorist, but it lacks the dramatic urgency Noyce brought to his most recent movies, Rabbit Proof Fence and The Quiet American.

Review published on the 29 March 2007 20:44