There are only a handful of films that provide a legitimate treatment of war. These include such WWII classics as ‘The Enemy Below’ (1957) with Robert Mitchum and Curd Jurgens as captains well met and bent on mutual assured destruction and the Wolfgang Petersen classic ‘Das Boot’ (1981) about the hell below of a German submarine crew. Following on to the war in Vietnam we had ‘Apocalypse Now’ exposing the war within ourselves and the nihilistic nature of a warring existence.
The Afrikaner National Party’s apartheid regime in South Africa provides considerable food for thought about mankind’s folly of cultural domination in the context of the illusion of manifest destiny.
In director Phillip Noyce’s most recent contribution to the dialogue, ‘Catch a Fire’ plumbs the fertile depths of self-doubt and loyalty amongst South Africa’s ruling elite in the midst of a struggle they knew they couldn’t win.
Noyce explores familiar ground with this political thriller as in his previous understated thrusts ‘The Quiet American,’ ‘Patriot Games’ and ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence.’ And he does this while building on the verité theme of Bronwen Hughes’ ‘Stander,’ the story of golden-boy Afrikaner cop who became the most wanted criminal in South Africa in the early 1980s through an apparent attack of conscience after his involvement in the killing of civilians at an anti-apartheid rally.
The setting is the early 1980s during the peak of the ANP’s doomed defense of apartheid. Derek Luke portrays real-life hero Patrick Chamusso, a foreman at the Secunda oil refinery and avowed apolitical worker bee.
Shawn Slovo wrote the screenplay at the suggestion of her father, Joe Slovo, who was, in fact, the former head of the military wing (MK) of the anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC).
Chamusso’s story is especially gripping for the fact that he had absolutely no inclination to personally fight apartheid or work for the ANC until the foaming-at-the-mouth Police Security Branch wrongly accused him of a bombing at the refinery. After the Afrikaner Gestapo tortured Chamusso and his wife Precious (Bonnie Henna -‘Drum’ (1974)) and threatened their children, Chamusso emerged from his prison hole a changed man. He vowed to revisit Secunda and do the job right.
Secunda is the perfect target for the ANC as well as the perfect plot vehicle for the story. A coal-to-oil conversion plant, it was critical to providing fuel oil to stave off the economic stranglehold of international boycotts.
It is hard to overestimate the importance of the Police Security Branch and senior officers like the fictitious Vic Nos, saddled with keeping plants like Secunda safe from terrorist violence will they were manned by thousands of skilled workers who spoke their own languages and despised the ruling regime. The PSB was free to arrest, hold, torture and kill terrorist suspects and their families on any charge. Despite this set-up for a black vs. white send-up of apartheid, Slovo takes her time and crafts carefully developed characters in Vos and his fellow officers.
They are far from street thugs, but rather are scientists who gradually destroy human beings in an attempt to get the information they need to defend their government against overwhelming odds.
Although Chamusso’s torture is shown in graphic detail, Nos is depicted as a man more intent on doing his job and defending his own family than someone out for blood. In fact, he tells Chamusso that even though apartheid is doomed he has no choice but to fight on.
Oscar winner Tim Robbins’ portrayal of Nic Vos is as hard-edged and crystal clear as is Slovo’s refusal to make Vos a two-dimensional villain. Robbins brings the dense concentration of his disturbing performance in ‘Mystic River’ and his anguished revolt in ‘Shawshank Redemption’ to bear full bore on his conflicted role as loving husband and father and merciless PSB persecutor of Patrick Chamusso.
After pulling out from a beginning that threatens to depict Patrick and Precious Chamusso as too good to be true and presenting a tribal setting that threatens to be too much National Geographic, director Noyce and screenwriter Slovo pick up the pace nicely to the final showdown at the oil refinery.
It is simply flat-out, nail-biting good.
Cinematographer Ron Fortunato (“Nil by Mouth”) captures the claustrophobic interiors of the SPB cells with the same accuracy as the sprawling chaos of the black settlements beside the oil refinery.
South African Philip Miller’s excellent soundtrack reflects his considerable knowledge of the nation’s diverse ethnic groups and integrates native sounds with a tense and throbbing soundtrack that moves the thriller aspect of the film to its tingling conclusion.
Like the themes of some of his previous films, including the aptly named “Forgiveness,” the ability to move on is the last message in the film.
Opens: October 27, 2006. MPAA: Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving torture and abuse, violence and brief language.
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