The horrors of the Apartheid are brought alarmingly back into focus with Phillip Noyce’s Catch a Fire, a film based on the courageous life of Patrick Chamusso. DIANE SPODAREK reviews.


Catch a Fire is a remarkable film based on the life of Patrick Chamusso a black South African man. Although it is one of many stories of oppression during Apartheid, this one dares to show how one man’s own personal actions contributed to his arrest and torture under Apartheid.

The performances by Derek Luke as Patrick and Tim Robbins as Nic Vos, who plays a white colonel in an anti-terrorist organization, are brilliant, flawless as is the direction and screenplay.

Philip Noyce skillfully weaves Vos’ point of view with Chamusso’s so we see: both men are fathers, husbands, natural leaders, and hard workers who believe in freedom. Nothing seems to have changed in the world today (Apartheid was abolished over fifteen years ago) as we watch on the screen self-righteous white men who believe barbaric means of torture and the killing of men, women, and children is justified. They are justified because they are above the law. They are the law. Nic Vos’ chilling blue eyes remind us that color will always matter. It is easy to make a comparison with this story to the stories we read about the US government’s policy of torture in Iraq.

Catch a Fire shows Chamusso as an ordinary guy, trying to do his job as a foreman at the oil refinery where he gets along with his fellow men, even when they make fun of him when he defers to the white boss man. Chamusso likes the money his job brings: he has a car, a wife, two children and a mistress who had his son. It costs money to keep two women happy, and trying to balance his real and secret life leads to his arrest and torture. Derek Luke delivers a beautiful performance as a multi layered charismatic man who finds that following the white man’s rules will not protect him.

When a bomb explodes at the oil refinery, while Patrick is with his mistress, he is accused, arrested along with a close friend, and tortured. At first, Patrick will not save himself; he refuses to say where he was when the bomb exploded. When Vos shows him his dead friend, (“Did you know Patrick that he had a weak heart?”) Patrick says he was with another woman but he did not do it. It’s only when Vos has Patrick’s wife, Patience, tortured that he confesses to a crime he did not commit. Colonel Vos knows he is innocent and lets them both go. Released, Patrick transforms from ordinary man to a freedom fighter. He searches out the African National Congress, (the ANC); where he is told if he joins, he has to give up everything, including his family and children who he may never see again. His response is a hard yes: They killed my friend. They tortured my wife. I have nothing. But he leaves behind two families who must struggle to survive without him.

In a secret location, Patrick begins his training learning how to use guns and plant bombs, fighting violence with violence, in the name of freedom for all blacks. One of the freedom songs the young trainees chant/sing illustrates their commitment: “We leave our parents/to enter countries we don’t know/to bring freedom to all.”

During his training, there is a raid at the ANC secret location and many trainees are slaughtered. One of the dead is the leader of the group and Chamusso becomes an active freedom fighter and leader. Because of his knowledge as foreman at the oil refinery, he plans the bombing and carries out the deed himself. While running away from Vos and his men, Chamusso is shot in the leg, but escapes. Chamusso finds refuge with his mistress where he thinks he is safe. Safe from Vos but not his wife. Patience tells Vos where he can find her husband. It is a deep moment of betrayal. By turning Patrick in, Patience gave him a life sentence of imprisonment and possible death. Her betrayal is immense, unforgivable. Chamusso is sentenced to 24 years in jail for the bombing of the refinery. Ten years later, after Apartheid is abolished Patrick is released with other political prisoners. In a voice over, he says that you are never free until you can forgive – it took him ten years to forgive his wife.

One of the creepiest scenes in the movie is when Nic Vos plays guitar and sings freedom songs. After days of torturing Chamusso including water boarding, Vos brings him to his home for a family dinner. The Colonel and Mrs. Vos and their children are so patronizing that watching them eat makes you nauseous. After dinner, Vos plays his guitar and sings a freedom song. He even tries to get Patrick to sing along as if they are at a hootenanny. I cannot imagine how Tim Robbins, a political activist in real life, got through the scene without crying or laughing. Of course, he is a fine actor. Throughout the movie Robbins plays Vos with a passive-aggressive smile, his blue eyes glassy and dead, like a dead fish.

At the end of the film Derek Luke and the real Patrick Chamusso are hanging out on a soccer field. They hug. It is a beautiful moment, particularly when you see Patrick is wearing a t-shirt that says “ex-political prisoner.” The end credits say that today Patrick lives with his wife and three children and 80 orphans. From peaceful guy trying to do his job to tortured political prisoner Patrick now gives back to others by providing a home to many children.

Catch a Fire is a story that profoundly illustrates the horrors of segregation and discrimination. It is deeply moving and yet full of optimism because of one man’s courage with the message that yes, one person can make a difference.