Review of Catch a Fire (2006) by Alex P — 14 Sep 2007

This is a pretty good against-all-odds story with Apartheid as a backdrop. Problem is, it feels like a top notch TV movie of the week, interesting but overall kinda bland, and thus it never breaks through to decent film qualification. Movies like this can afford to be over two hours; this one clocks in at a little under an hour-forty. Consequently, it feels like they rushed a few things. I would have liked to have had some more character developement. The acting is uniformly well done, but I had to work to come up with any reason to give a shit about anybody.

This is the first thing I have ever seen Derek Luke in, but I really liked his work. His Zulu accent is very good, and he does some very true emotional work. I usally like Tim Robbins, but he comes off a little one-note here. All stoic, all the time. It's not his fault, though. The script really doesn't give him anything else to do. His dialect work is all right but occasionally it seems hesitant, like he's not quite sure how to pronounce certain words, so he funnels that slow, clipped delivery into his stoic character. Fair enough, Tim, fair enough. You made "Hudsucker Proxy" and "Shawshank Redemption"; I would forgive a lot worse than that. I already have. Anybody remember "Nothing to Lose" with Martin Lawrence? Didn't think so. I plunked down hard cash to see that IN THE THEATERS, so if I can forgive him for that, I could probably forgive him for raping my grandmother.

Anyway, back to "Catch a Fire". The movie is never boring, but almost always a little confusing, and ultimately, when we meet the real Patrick Chamusso, and we hear his story, it's actually quite touching. Too bad it was so confusing for so much of the time.