Catch a Fire (2006)

Truly Dreadful Film

Expected more

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The picture shows life in Apartheid-era South Africa, it deals about the real story of Patrick Chamusso(Derek Luke), an oil refinery foreman, soccer coach and good father of family . He's married to Precious(Bonnie Henna) and with children. The president Botha's government rules in iron hand of the supremacist white minority over the black population in an oppressive system. When happen an explosion in the refinery Patrick is arrested by police colonel Nic Vos(Tim Robbins).The secretive torture and sadism that follows in custody leads to his changing ideals. His wife is also arrested and then truly starts to watch the atrocities, forced to become freedom fighter and then he goes into action. Rebellion against the repressive government breaks out his mind. He's attempting to change his world for the better but at the expense of using terrorist means. Then he goes to Mozambique where is trained by the local terrorist guerrilla and he joins the ANC, African National Congress.This is an exciting and thrilling movie based on real events.This story about apartheid is very compelling made and deserving a fine treatment with poignant moments.It's completely convincing and makes a moving and powerful statement about the evil of the racism. Superb cast with fine all round performances; particularly from Derek Luke, he does a very good job, he's surprisingly good in the role of dad turned terrorist, and excellent Tim Robbins as sadistic torturer.The remainder of the casting was also competent enough and did splendid acting.Evocative cinematography by Garry Phillips and Ron Fortunato. Adequate musical score with African sounds by Philip Miller . The motion picture is professionally directed by Phillip Noyce. Another films about ¨Apartheid¨ theme are the following: ¨ Cry the beloved country¨with Sidney Poitier; ¨The power of one¨ with Armin Mueller Stall and Steven Dorff;¨A world apart¨by Chris Menges with Barbara Hershey and Jodhi May; ¨A white dry season¨with Marlon Brando; ¨Cry Freedom¨ by Richard Attemborough with Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline; and the biographies, as ¨Mandela¨ with Danny Glover and Alfre Woodward as Winnie and ¨Mandela and DeKlerk¨, among others.

The entire film is a lie. The film is dedicated to Joe Slovo, portrayed in the movie as 'Head of ANC Special Ops', when in actual fact he was the leader of the South African Communist Party, and a Marxist and terrorist through and through. At one point, an ANC 'cadre' instructs his trainees that 'the ANC does not kill indiscriminately', when in actual fact all those thugs ever did was murder civilians in their quest to seize power and reduce South Africa to another Stalinist hellhole. The ANC, and specifically Mandela and Slovo were behind the infamous 'Church Street bombing', that saw a bomb detonated in rush hour Pretoria, killing and maiming scores of innocent men and women - both black and white. The image of Mandela that has been sold to the gullible West has been one of a peaceful uniter, when in actual fact he schooled his followers in the teachings of Marx and Lenin, counts Fidel Castro as a close friend, and has the blood of many people - black and white - on his hands. Both Mandela and Joe Slovo are nothing more than garden variety Marxist thugs, and no amount of revisionist film making will change that.

Vos says:"Between you and me Patrick,apartheid cannot last -25 million blacks, 3 million white people". In the time in which movie takes place there was 5 million whites in South Africa, 3 million remained today. Movie also does not depict in detail white civillains suffering from ANC. Movie portrays ANC actions against property-factories ,railways and similar. It does not mentions actions against white civilians for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Street_bombing Only in one place Vos's daughter mentions that her friends parents were killed at sleep. It also does not say anything about ANC detention camps where people were tortured and executed without trial: http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/TRC%20VOLUME%202.pdf Throughout the movie "they took our land" cry can be heard. It is worth remembering that blacks are not the oldest inhabitants of South Africa, the Bushmen are the oldest. They were displaced and massacred from South Africa by Bantu tribes.

This film deals with an apolitical black man in apartheid South Africa, who is pulled into the fray against the gov't after he is falsely accuse of terrorism by the head of anti-terrorism in the South African govt. This film is beautiful. The cinematography is excellent, the relationship between Patrick and his family is shown well, and we are made to see that Patrick is a good guy, with a good job, who just wants to be a father and husband and nothing more.We also see Tim Robbins and his family and how he deals the omnipresent threat of violence from the people he is apart of oppressing. He is shown as a human character, he loves his wife and kids, he sings folk songs, and he runs a South African Guantanamo bay; hes a bad man.I cried at one point in the movie, and was interested throughout, the pacing was good. There just seemed to be something missing from it. I mean it was a pretty good movie, I just felt like there was another 20 minutes that belonged in the movie. I didn't quite feel like it was enough.Also the narration towards the end of the movie seemed a little stiff to me, as if Derek Luke wasn't comfortable reading it with an accent so he delivered it really choppy. Thats very minor.Having said all of that its definitely worth seeing. People will say its a movie about terrorism and I guess in one sense it is. But Americans have such a distorted view of terrorism. Its like if you are a group of people in a country fighting and you don't have an official army with tanks and planes you are a terrorist. But if you have a real army with tanks and planes you aren't a terrorist and if you blow things up its not terrorism. Terrorist/terrorism is a political word and this movie proves it.