Catch a Fire

Released on DVD this week.

Catch a Fire takes place in the 1980s in a South Africa where apartheid is alive and well. Derek Luke plays Patrick Chamusso who is a suspect in a terrorist attack. He is taken into custody by the police led by Tim Robbins. Patrick (Luke) and his wife are subsequentally physically and mentally abused before being released. This experience infuriates Patrick and he decides to strike back.

The title is from a Bob Marley album, whose songs are used to good effect. Luke fares much better than Robbins; not quite as intense as Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond, but still fine. Robbins struggles with a South African accent (he should have called DiCaprio's dialect coach). The director Philip Noyce fills the screen with blues, reds, and greens which comment on the mood. Noyce also composes some interesting and fresh aerial shots. But the days where he made straightforward solid action movies like Dead Calm, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger are gone. As with the recent Rabbitproof Fence and The Quiet American, he seems more interested in promoting his liberal agenda. It OK to destroy factories and property if the government was mean to you. Really? No wonder your unemployment rate is so high. Quick, let's find the next historical lesson that can comment on the war in Iraq!

If you can find it in your heart to have sympathy for a terrorist (freedom-fighter?) who also cheats on his wife, you may enjoy the movie more than me. Oh, and apartheid is bad, OK? B-