Catch a Fire (2006)
Patrick Chamusso is a family man with a decent supervisor job at the town's biggest employer. He stays out of trouble and is uninterested in changing the world because his world isn't too bad. Set in the last days of South African apartheid, this based-on-a-true story is compelling stuff.
When the refinery where he works is rocked by a bomb blast, Patrick comes under suspicion because he skipped work that day. The subsequent questioning and extended psychological and physical torture -- finally extending to his wife -- winds up, ironically, turning this easygoing man into the freedom fighter he was wrongly accused of being. Tim Robbins plays the lead investigator and it's a kind of weird performance. Or maybe it's just a weird role. I think it's meant to be the same type of horrible-but-understandable figure as Kenneth Branagh's "Mr. Devil" in Rabbit-Proof Fence (by the same director), but somehow it seemed more split personality than two believable sides of one personality.
Great material. Pretty good movie.
B
When the refinery where he works is rocked by a bomb blast, Patrick comes under suspicion because he skipped work that day. The subsequent questioning and extended psychological and physical torture -- finally extending to his wife -- winds up, ironically, turning this easygoing man into the freedom fighter he was wrongly accused of being. Tim Robbins plays the lead investigator and it's a kind of weird performance. Or maybe it's just a weird role. I think it's meant to be the same type of horrible-but-understandable figure as Kenneth Branagh's "Mr. Devil" in Rabbit-Proof Fence (by the same director), but somehow it seemed more split personality than two believable sides of one personality.
Great material. Pretty good movie.
B
posted by MeMe | 12:55 PM
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