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Catch a Fire
Metascore
62 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 32 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    83
    Philip Noyce's anti-apartheid drama is tense and thoughtful, if somewhat marred by Hollywood-style thrills.
  2. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    83
    Both a condemnation of torture as a political tool and a tribute to the bravery that exists within everyone.
  3. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    80
    Luke has real movie-star power. He's enormously sympathetic, but this moving, well-crafted movie, written by Shawn Slovo, mercifully doesn't turn him into a plaster saint.
  4. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    75
    Screenwriter Shawn Slovo -- whose white parents were anti-apartheid activists in South Africa -- ends his finely tuned screenplay on a note not of violence and anger but of forgiveness. It's a breathtaking coda that reminds us of that undeniable human beauty: the ability to survive, to fight for right -- and then move peacefully on.
  5. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    75
    The movie belongs to Luke, who brings the heroic Chamusso to life as richly as Forest Whitaker does the evil Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    75
    Luke, who seems to have been marking time since his impressive debut in the title role of Denzel Washington's "Antwone Fisher" four years ago, is fiercely good as this reluctant warrior and devoted family man.
  7. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    75
    Luke, who had the title role in Denzel Washington's directorial debut, "Antwone Fisher," is that rare actor who can convey profound inner conflict with just a look in his eye; his performance is attuned, astute and remarkable.
  8. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    75
    This deeply moving and disturbing film derives power from being based on the true story of a black South African who does everything possible, no matter how degrading, to get by within an immoral system, but becomes radicalized almost despite himself.
  9. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    75
    Catch a Fire isn't edgy like some of Noyce's previous titles nor is it a big-budget endeavor with A-list stars. Instead, it's a simple and sincere tale of inspiration.
  10. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Ethan Alter
    75
    Right off the bat, Catch a Fire distinguishes itself from other recent international productions about Africa (including The Constant Gardener and The Last King of Scotland) in that it is actually told from an African perspective.
  11. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    75
    Catch a Fire paints the period with a double-sided brush that gives yesterday its due and puts today on notice.
  12. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    Fire shows what happens when a government systematically denies rights to one racial group for decades, but its message is more current.
  13. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    75
    With the same affinity for stories of culture clash he showed in "The Quiet American" and "Rabbit-Proof Fence," director Phillip Noyce embraces the tale with gusto.
  14. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    70
    Comparisons to "Hotel Rwanda" make sense up to a point - both feature heroes who have the scales removed from their eyes - but "Fire" is no tearjerker, and here the story of Chamusso's conversion serves mainly as prologue to the main plot, a history-tinted cat-and-mouse policier in which he will attempt to finish the job he was wrongly accused of starting.
  15. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    70
    The young American actor (Derek Luke) gives such an intense, passionate performance as South African Patrick Chamusso that he just about dares you not to be involved with the tale he is telling.
  16. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joanne Kaufman
    70
    An affecting story of punishment and crime, of betrayal and redemption marred by preachiness and a treacly ending, Catch a Fire is notable for its refusal to see things in terms of black and white.
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  17. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    67
    It's always odd to see Robbins, a political activist in his own right, playing at villainy, but here he descends into the role so thoroughly that the lopsided smile becomes less a notation of cockeyed boyishness than a treacherous Cheshire smirk.
  18. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    67
    Whatever you make of the film's politics, Luke makes a vivid impression in his most substantial role since "Antwone Fisher," and Robbins resists the temptation to make the thinly written Vos a villainous caricature.
  19. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    67
    The movie is flawed and doesn't completely come off as a convincing biography, but its heart is in the right place, it has moments of poignancy and power, and it makes a pleasant change of pace for a genre that essentially has become a cry of despair.
  20. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    63
    Luke gives a powerful performance -- with his looks and talent, he should be a much bigger star -- but Robbins is the one you'll remember. Fixed with the faraway look of a doomed man who knows the center cannot hold, he gazes fearfully toward a future he knows is coming and can do nothing to stop.
  21. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    63
    Though preachy at times, Catch a Fire is a well-constructed action thriller elevated by Luke's performance.
  22. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    63
    In Catch a Fire Noyce has caught the holy spirit. The movie is a thriller that wants to lift you up.
  23. Empire
    Reviewed by: Helen O'Hara
    60
    An intelligent thriller that effectively conveys the message that terrorism, even in apartheid-era South Africa, is rarely a black-and-white issue.
  24. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    60
    The less rosy message of Catch a Fire is that aggression breeds aggression.
  25. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    60
    Stories of resistance to oppression will never become obsolete, but this feels like a picture that should have been made a long time ago.
  26. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Jessica Reaves
    50
    The horrors of apartheid deserve a better treatment than this.
  27. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    50
    Catch a Fire just doesn't spark.
  28. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    50
    In the end, Catch a Fire plays like some weird hybrid on the crazy-quilt filmography of Phillip Noyce, which includes small productions made in his native Australia and the Sharon Stone sexcapade "Sliver." What it's definitely not is the standard-issue movie about apartheid; there's no white protagonist, no pale-faced hero riding in on his high horse to save the oppressed black man.
  29. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    50
    It's a film that wants to play as if it were ripped from today's headlines, but has been shredded into near incoherence.
  30. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    50
    Director Phillip Noyce has made a serious movie that switches to almost popcorn entertainment.
  31. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    50
    The film never strays much beyond the obvious, despite a conscientious effort by Tim Robbins to humanize a white security officer.
  32. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    50
    The problem with Tim Robbins' dreadful turn as a South African "anti-terrorist" official in Catch A Fire--and it was also a problem with his sniveling Bill Gates impersonation in "Antitrust"--is that he can't hide his distaste for his own character.
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User Reviews

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User Score
6.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 15 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. fotp
    9
    Apartheid movies. I went into this one thinking that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. If within ten minutes, any film can shatter even one of your prejudices or preconditions, you know it’s bound to be something special. First and foremost, the cinematography is excellent. And God knows whether it was Bob Marley’s Exodus or Could You Be Loved playing in the background of a lighthearted scene, a chill ran down my spine. For a good portion of the film, I’d sworn I’d read a passage somewhere which said this film was wholly fictional. As much emotion as this film conjures, I had myself convinced that this at worst could be a liberal exaggeration. I was determined not to allow a conflict formed for entertainment to spark my hate for a regime which was ousted before I was even born. However, In the final seven minutes, the cameras took me to the home of the real Patrick Chamusso and I realized this was no joke. Regrettably, I’m going to have to break that [spoiler] wall in this post as the entire thing was just gripping. There’s a scene where Patrick, the protagonist, has endured several days/weeks of torture after the bombing of Secunda CTL, a white owned synthetic fuel plant which became a vital target of one anti apartheid movement. Despite the fact that Patrick played no role in the bombing and was even out of town that night, the main antagonist, Nic Vos, is unconvinced of his innocence. This character (thankfully fictional), from the get-go, becomes one of the most mentally twisted and mangled characters I’ve ever seen portrayed. The facade he displayed had me unconvinced as to whether this man would truly develop into the antagonist he appeared to be or a Donald Woods type character. It could have gone either way. Not until the climactic scene above, where Patrick is kicked into a room and left to crawl around blindfolded before bumping into the brutalized body of his wife, do you truly see that this man is psychologically…evil personified. As Vos goes on to milk every facet of this secret after Patrick divulges it, Patrick finds that all he’d valued in his life of Apartheid complacency is being ripped away from him. And then…something catches fire within this man. Terrorism. I was just reading an interview with the cast from a time when this film was one you’d call recent. The interviewer asked Tim Robbins, the actor who portrayed Vow if he genuinely thinks Patrick was a terrorist. Right away, he picks apart the connotation Americans instinctively draw of the concept after the turn of the century. One could surely argue that the former definition and the current one hardly deserve to be classified under the same word. But then again, I think ignorance plays a central role in the redefining of the word to us. Never before has such a sheltered civilian population had such a media and to a lesser scale, physical, barrage unleashed on them. If The object of terrorism is to foment fear and wage war on an opponents psychological ability or will to wage war, it’s remained exactly the same. In this film however, ANC commandants explicitly command Patrick to take no lives in his mission. That seems to be a lost art among this generation. I did read the words of a few IMDB reviewers. Not the positive - The negative, as there were bound to be at least a few. The only one to give it 1 star out of 10 would be the expected ‘offended’ viewer who was disgusted to see the perception of moral good, the ANC, and the perception of moral evil as the Afrikaners as evil, so overtly nudged on by the director. To that, I say you can make anyone appear the victim and the offender depending on what scope you’re looking in. Unfortunately, if you look at the big picture here, no amount of roads or fuel plants the Boers could have built would justify even one man tortured or killed. Of course, he was quick to draw on the movie’s failure to depict the downturn of South Africa’s economy proceeding the crumbling of Apartheid rule. I’m sorry this wasn’t the documentary he was looking for. Aside from that, another viewer recognized a flaw that even a newly indoctrinated true believer like myself could agree to. The film starts slow and ends fast. By the time Apartheid finally loosens it’s grip on the country, Mandela rises to power, and Patrick and his fellow political prisoners are set free, there’s no movie left. Furthermore, yet another reviewer claims that despite every conflict that occurs in Catch A Fire, a coherent theme is not established. Forgiveness. Albeit a slowly developing one is the theme I believe comes to the fore undoubtedly as the movie fades to credits. Still, Catch A Fire’s easily become one of my favorite movies of all time.… Full Review »
  2. JasonE.
    6
    Despite its obvious well-meaning humanistic intentions, "Catch a Fire" remains mired in genre trafficking despite its ambitions to convey the power of self-realization. By repeatedly flushing the screen with the hopeful, joyous chantings/dances of the saintly natives he overshadows the smaller personal story of one man's triumphs over his own mild-mannered acquience to the injustices that plague his nation. Robbins adds a stern introspection that adds slight dynamicism to this otherwise didactic tale.… Full Review »
  3. ChadS.
    8
    When Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke) reaches ANC headquarters, it'll become crystal clear as to why "Catch a Fire" does the story of apartheid some justice. We meet Joe Slovo (Malcolm Purkey), leader of the South African Communist Party, who easily could've been the male protagonist in another film. Thankfully, the filmmaker didn't Alan Parker this baby, and allowed a black man to tell the story of his own reduction. To make allowance for this box office-killing gambit, unfortunately, there's an action scene that seems phoned in from another movie, seemingly, as some sort of **** compromise to give apartheid some sizzle. If you're going to use bombast, use it to honor the memory of the dead, not some flick starring Harrison Ford in full sweat-mode. When depicting the violence that pervaded apartheid, "Catch a Fire" lacks that one defining moment in which we see and feel the monstrous evil of this government-sanctioned racism. It's okay for Patrick to be a bigamist, and Nic Vos (Tim Robbins) to be a good family man (we want complexity in our characters), but apartheid itself should be painted in broader strokes. It pulls back on the blood, which prevents the audience from a few hours of rabble-rousing after leaving the cineplex. In "Mississippi Burning", the ugliness of slavery becomes all-too-visceral when some klansman kicks a young boy in the face. "Catch a Fire" lacks such a moment.… Full Review »
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