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Review #280 of 365
Film: Catch a Fire (2006) [PG-13] 101 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.25
Where Viewed: Landmark Chez Artiste, Denver, CO
Special Denver Film Society Advance Screening
When 1st Seen: 18 October 2006
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Film's Official Website
DVD Release Date: unscheduled
Directed by: Phillip Noyce (The Quiet American)
Written by: Shawn Slovo (Captain Corelli's Mandolin)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Tim Robbins (Zathura) • Derek Luke (Glory Road) • Bonnie Henna (Drum) • Michele Burgers (Malunde)
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
There are certain movies going in that you know are going to be good. Either you know the story is going to be great, or you really like the actors involved, or perhaps the director is one who never misses and never does a bad film. Seeing such a film causes one to ponder why bad films or not so great films are ever made. Catch a Fire is just such a film. The story, written by Shawn Slovo, the son of leading white South African anti-apartheid activists and author of A World Apart tells, with some 'made for Hollywood seasoning', the real life history of one Patrick Chamusso who gets accused wrongly of trying to blow up a power plant who later becomes a freedom fighter when the investigations draw his wife into the line of torture. The film is directed by Phillip Noyce, director of Patriot Games, The Bone Collector, and Rabbit Proof Fence. He knows how to treat his characters in thrillers as more than mere agents of the plot. He endows them with three dimensions often deftly revealing the duality of all things that seem right or wrong. Finally, you've got Tim Robbins in a leading role. One of the more politically astute of all actors, Mr. Robbins is known, minus Zathura of course, for taking roles that firstly challenge your notions of him and secondly challenge the mind. All summed, the groundwork has been put in place for an important film about a time near the end of Apartheid in South Africa when things started to roll forward in ending the racially divided politics and freedom of the nation. What one might not realize based on this, however, is that Catch a Fire now stands to serve as a powerful political allegory for what's going on in the world today.
"…Catch a Fire, may have started out as an historical thriller but it has emerged an even more powerful and important film for today's geopolitical landscape. "
The story begins with an introduction to Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke). He has risen to the position of a foreman at the Secunda Oil Refinery—the leading power plant in South Africa where the rich coal deposits are converted in a revolutionary process into gasoline for use in cars—hmm, interesting, didn't know that was even possible. In fact, this allowed the White-ruled South Africa to thumb its nose at the rest of the world with this symbol of self-sufficiency in place. So here is a black man who has risen to a decently prominent position in the plant, making a 'good' salary, and keeping his family in decent comfort relative to the average Black citizen of the country at the time. He is married to a beautiful and charismatic wife named Precious (Bonnie Henna) and has two lovely daughters. In his spare time, he coaches a youth soccer team. Mind you, this picture needs to be viewed through the lens of what life in South Africa in 1980 was like for Blacks. So, no uniforms, no team bus, no grassy fields with chalk lines, goals, and nets. The kids are shoeless, they play on any open dirt surface, and they ride around crammed 16 or more into a Volkswagon minibus. Now, Patrick is far from perfect, also, as the portrait painted my indicate. Patrick has not always been so faithful to Precious. In fact, he has a son by another woman who lives relatively close by. Supposedly, he has no more real affection for this other woman, but he spends time with her and the child nonetheless. He does want to fulfill his obligations to his son. On a particularly exciting day, his soccer team advances to the championships, so he phones Precious to call him in sick at work so his team could play in the game. That same night, by unfortunately coincidence, outlawed African National Congress members plant a bomb at the power plant. The bomb does little other than symbolic damage and uplifting of the spirts of the Blacks who sing and hope for freedom to come to their land. Patrick quickly becomes a suspect and falls under the scrutiny of Nic Vos (Tim Robbins) who happens to be a Colonel in the Police Security Branch charged with identifying and arresting every member of the ANC and putting all terrorists to death. His men pick up Patrick and others from his shift crew and the plant and begin torturing them for information and confessions to planting the explosive device. They begin with a presumption of guilt and an expectation of the accused and the evidence to eventually indicate innocence. The next day, Nic Vos tries nice tactics after the torture tactics failed to find the truth. Perhaps some of this is now sounding familiar when compared to acts of governments in power today. Even though Patrick was not even in Secunda at the time, even though he never talks politics, doesn’t allow his mother-in-law to listen to rebel radio stations, and actually sticks up for the White bosses at the plant who require Black workers to use far away bathrooms as opposed to the closer in ones for Whites only, so that he can keep his bosses happy and his job, Nic Vos and his men are convinced that Patrick is responsible or that he knows who is. In a particularly beguiling set of scenes, Nic rescuses a bloody, beaten, tortured Patrick from the slab floor of his jail cell to come to clean up and come home to his house for Sunday dinner with this family. Huh? What type of tactic is this? It's all part of the carefully perfected mind games that Vos uses to wear down his captives and get them to confess, for a short time later, after Patrick refuses to confess, and cannot explain his whereabouts that night after he dropped off the team at the school to stay overnight before driving the team back the next day—he was actually visiting his former mistress but is too embarrassed to admit it to Voss, who should show up battered and beaten in an interrogation room that Patrick is let into blindfolded other than his dear and lovely Precious. It is at that moment, seeing her like that, that a switch flips in Patrick's mind. He leaps to admit he was responsible for the bombing, and in his plea for Precious, convinces an on-looking Vos that he could not have been responsible for the bombing. And when they are released, it is at that moment that he begins to realize that for all that was done to him and his wife and his friends who were either killed or tortured, this government must end. And, he makes the ultimate sacrifice and pays a heavy price for his next decision, to leave South Africa and join the freedom fighters training for invasion to reclaim the country for the Blacks. For the closing of the film, there is a very nice touch, where we get to see the real Patrick Chamusso meeting up with Derek Luke and getting some soccer pointers. Mr. Chamusso was restored to his home from prison after Nelson Mandela became the first Black President of South Africa. He now lives in a home with a new wife, three children, and 80 adopted orphans bringing the story of his life full circle.
Phillip Noyce has done a marvelous job, as mentioned earlier, of illustrating the duality of right and wrong in all of the characters in the film. Is it right or wrong for Patrick to desert his family to go and fight for freedom potentially putting all of their lives at risk? What about Nic Vos? Is he an evil torturer or is he just doing what's right to keep his family safe and preserve the government of his country? These are complicated questions not easily answered and involving matters of perspective. They force everyone to take a step back and think about his or her moral grounds. The actors, particularly Mr. Robbins and Mr. Luke upon whose shoulders the weight of the entire film rests, deliver nearly perfect performances both emotionally charged and multi-faceted. Bonnie Henna and Michele Burgers as their wives also deliver top-notch performances sure to deliver them even more substantial upcoming roles. Ms Henna, was stunning in her playful yet incredibly strong personality; and, perhaps, her character is the biggest victim in the film aside from all of the Black South Africans, for she is used time and again by Vos to gain information on his activities, and her lack of trust in him seals his fate. All tolled, Catch a Fire, may have started out as an historical thriller but it has emerged an even more powerful and important film for today's geopolitical landscape.
Phillip Noyce has done a marvelous job, as mentioned earlier, of illustrating the duality of right and wrong in all of the characters in the film. Is it right or wrong for Patrick to desert his family to go and fight for freedom potentially putting all of their lives at risk? What about Nic Vos? Is he an evil torturer or is he just doing what's right to keep his family safe and preserve the government of his country? These are complicated questions not easily answered and involving matters of perspective. They force everyone to take a step back and think about his or her moral grounds. The actors, particularly Mr. Robbins and Mr. Luke upon whose shoulders the weight of the entire film rests, deliver nearly perfect performances both emotionally charged and multi-faceted. Bonnie Henna and Michele Burgers as their wives also deliver top-notch performances sure to deliver them even more substantial upcoming roles. Ms Henna, was stunning in her playful yet incredibly strong personality; and, perhaps, her character is the biggest victim in the film aside from all of the Black South Africans, for she is used time and again by Vos to gain information on his activities, and her lack of trust in him seals his fate. All tolled, Catch a Fire, may have started out as an historical thriller but it has emerged an even more powerful and important film for today's geopolitical landscape.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
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Other Projects Featuring Catch a Fire (2006)
Cast Members
Tim Robbins
• Derek Luke • Bonnie HennaMichele Burgers
Director
Phillip Noyce
Writer
Shawn Slovo
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Catch a Fire (2006) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Catch a Fire, written by Shawn Slovo, son of leading white South African anti-apartheid activists tells, with some 'made for Hollywood seasoning', the life story of South African, Black Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke) who becomes an African National Congress freedom fighter after he and his wife are viciously tortured by the men of South African Police Security Colonel Nic Voss (Tim Robbins) during an investigation where he is accused wrongly of planting an explosive at the power plant. Director Phillip Noyce marvelously illustrates the duality of right and wrong in the central characters creating an equally complex moral dilemma for ascertaining the side of villainy. Robbins and Luke deliver nearly perfect performances both emotionally-charged and multi-faceted. All tolled, Catch a Fire, may have started out as an historical thriller but it has come through as an even more powerful, political allegory for the geopolitical landscape of the world today.
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