Movie Review: Catch a Fire

Catch a Fire (2006) 

Directed by Phillip Noyce

Written by Phillip Noyce 

Starring Derek Luke, Tim Robbins, Bonnie Henna

Release Date October 27th, 2006

Published October 27th, 2006

The life of Patrick Chamusso is interesting and dramatic but no more so than other African men who joined the fight against Apartheid. So why is the life story of Patrick Chamusso now being told in the action drama Catch A Fire? Writer-director Phillip Noyce has no answer for that in terms of why Patrick Chamusso appealed to him in particular.

However, elements of Patrick's life do lend themselves to a particular political point that Noyce wants to make about the current war on terror. Thus, the life story of Patrick Chamusso is basically a coat hanger for an over-arching metaphor about our current state of geo-political affairs. Whether you agree with Noyce, as I do, you can't help but feel overwhelmed by the hammer like; lack of subtelty in Catch A Fire and the way Patrick Chamusso's story is abused for a political purpose.

Derek Luke stars in Catch A Fire as Patrick Chamusso a responsible family man who has managed to find a strong measure of success in the white dominated world of South Africa. Working in management at an oil refinery Patrick has a nice home, two beautiful children and his wife Precious (Bonnie Mbulli) is a former beauty queen.

So how did Patrick Chamusso go on from a man who fit so well in the rigid Boer dominated society of South Africa to become a revolutionary in the African National Congress, training to become a soldier in the war against Apartheid?

Late one night the refinery is bombed by the ANC. Patrick and two of his closest friends are arrested for the crime. Patrick has an alibi, he was visitiing his son by a different mother; an indiscretion he refuses to admit so that his wife will not find out. This leads to Patrick being tortured for weeks on end by a team of government security officers under the direction of Nic Vos (Tim Robbins).

After Patrick's wife is subjected to torture as well, Patrick confesses to the crime he did not commit. His confession however, is disregarded by Vos who decides he was not guilty afterall and let's him go. With his family in shambles and his pride damaged by being unable to protect his wife, Patrick feels he has no other option but to fight back against the white establishment that attacked him without reason.

The point that Phillip Noyce wants to make here is that sometimes terrorists aren't born, they're made. This same point has been made by talking heads all over world in relation to the American invasion of Iraq. Men who feel their country or family is under attack have gone from businessmen running a fruit stand to an enemy combatant willing to give his life to stop the American invaders.

Consider the photos that came from Abu Ghraib prison. Now imagine the average Iraqi citizen seeing how fellow Iraqis are treated and deciding to fight against America. How about the victims of America's so called Shock and Awe campaign that began the war in Iraq. Though American bombs were as accurate as they could possibly be, many went off course and killed Iraqi citizens, more than enough reasoning for a relative or friend to decide they will fight against America.

Consider those things and consider that outside of their metaphorical significance, none of these things have anything but  a tenuous connection to the life of Patrick Chamusso. When thinking of the life of Patrick Chamusso you can see cinematic elements but nothing more cinematic than the life of any number of A.N.C members who gave their life to fighting apartheid.

Telling Patrick Chamusso's story is simply not the point of Catch A Fire.

Derek Luke gives a credible dramatic life to the role of Patrick Chamusso. Unlike director Noyce, for whom Chamusso is just a useful tool, Luke respects the story of Patrick and takes care in bringing it to life. Unfortunately for Luke, Chamusso is a pawn in this plot. There is little dramatic arc here. Patrick Chamusso's life turned on the decision to fight back against the government that wronged him. Had the government not tortured his wife he likely would never have become militant, never would have fought back.

Is what Phillip Noyce does with the story of Patrick Chamusso so wrong? No. What happened to Patrick Chamusso provides a strong metaphorical correlation to the story of any number of Iraqis who became militant in the face of invading Americans that they felt were not liberators but were in fact attacking them, their family's and their way of life. (If you want an essay on the good of the Iraq invasion, write it yourself).

What bothers me about Catch A Fire is the lack of any subtlety in making this metaphorical point. Somewhere along the line someone genuinely wanted to tell the story of Patrick Chamusso and Phillip Noyce came along and decided to use that story for his own purposes.

Noyce's intentions are not stated overtly onscreen except in the casting of noted war protestor Tim Robbins. Now, Robbins does deliver a very strong performance in Catch A Fire. However, his presence is yet another signalling of the overarching metaphor. Robbins himself has in past interviews made the point about how the invasion of Iraq has created as many enemies as it's killed, now in Catch A Fire he has given a dramatic presentation of that point using the life of Patrick Chamusso as a tool.

Before my conservative readers get the wrong impression about Robbins role in Catch A Fire;  take note. Robbins' Nick Vos is no simple villain, nor is his villainy a representation of American soldiers, interrogators or even politicians. Robbins' character is very conflicted about the actions he feels he is forced to take in order to ensure the status quo in South Africa. Vos honestly believed what he was doing was the right thing and that he was just following orders when he engaged in torturing men he believed were terrorists.

Catch A Fire is a well made political drama about a good man who goes beyond himself to right the wrong of Apartheid and to get some measure of revenge for the ills caused to his family. That his story is abused by director Phillip Noyce to make a tortured metaphoric point about his and others opposition to the war in Iraq is not a reflection on how interesting or uninteresting, worthy or unworthy, Patrick Chamusso's life story is.

Phillip Noyce had a point he wanted to make and he used the life of Patrick Chamusso to make it. I wish he might have brought a little more nuance or subtlety to the evocation of this metaphor but that didn't happen. Thus like repeated hammer blows, the point of Catch A Fire is made over and over until the story of Patrick Chamusso is just background noise.