Seven Oaks Magazine.

Catch a Fire is a gripping film about the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. A story for all time, it is also a story with particular resonance and lessons for our time. Set in 1980, when Nelson Mandela and his comrades were locked-up as “terrorists”, and the U.S., U.K. and Israel backed the repugnant racist regime in South Africa while having already begun arming and financing the fundamentalists fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

The plot is based on the real life of Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), who was an oil plant foreman dedicated to providing for his family and keeping his head down, avoiding the politics of the underground freedom struggle. Away from work in order to coach his youth soccer team in their playoffs, on his return Patrick is falsely accused of a sabotage bombing of the plant. Enter Nic Vos (Tim Robbins), a top operative with the country’s repressive security forces. Brutalized and humiliated, Patrick is finally released, but he comes out of the torture a changed man, ready to sacrifice himself for the liberation cause.

Catch a Fire is not just a reminder of the powerful movement that ultimately overcame apartheid, but it is also, implicitly, a strong denunciation of today’s “war on terror.” We see the savagery and ultimate futility of the checkpoints, unequal citizenship, and arbitrary and collective punishment. Robbins is convincing as Vos, and the film is effective because it presents both narratives – that of the oppressor minority Afrikaners, and the oppressed Black majority. Patrick eventually trains in exile with the ANC, and here we see the “terrorists” in the camps in Mozambique and Angola as they really were: Selfless, proud and humanitarian fighters for a free and just South Africa.

Because this is based on a true story, the explosive Hollywood ending never materializes. Instead, we see Patrick, complete with his individual dilemmas and shortcomings, as part of a heroic collective victory. Catch a Fire is a triumph, a film that lives up to the inspiring story it tells.