Catch a Fire

Starring: Tim Robbins, Derek Luke, Bonnie Henna Directed by: Phillip Noyce Set against a country in flames and two cultures at war, Catch a Fire is the gripping account of the spark that ignited a man, inspired a revolution and united a country. From the Director of Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger comes Catch a Fire, an action packed journey of sabotage, corruption, alienation and murder. Academy Award winner Tim Robbins (Mystic River, The Shawshank Redemption) and Derek Luke (Glory Road, Friday Night Lights) star in this suspense thriller based on a true story.

After both he and his wife are tortured by agents of the Boer government (led by a conflicted security chief played by Tim Robbins), Chamusso becomes a radicalized guerilla for the MK, or military wing, of the African National Congress. Filmed on the actual locations where its events took place, Catch a Fire bristles with urgent authenticity, its political cat-and-mouse game capably handled by director Philip Noyce, who applies the sensitivity of his acclaimed films Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Quiet American with the thriller expertise established in mainstream hits like Dead Calm and Patriot Games. Catch a Fire is an intelligent, fact-based apartheid thriller that tells the story of Patrick Chamusso (sympathetically played by Derek Luke), a South African wrongly accused, in 1980, of sabotaging the oil refinery where he worked. The film's third-act shift toward conventional sabotage-and-manhunt plotting may seem jarring, but you can hardly blame Noyce and screenwriter Shawn Slovo (whose father led the MK when Chamusso joined) for sticking to the facts in a politically charged story handled with admirable humanity and compassion. --Jeff Shannon