Catch a Fire Reviews

What Catch A Fire lacks in depth it nearly makes up for in timeliness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Manages to feel dated despite the extreme relevance of the message that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist...

| Original Score: 2.5/4

While based on a true story ... and featuring several powerful moments, the film is conventional to the point of distraction ...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

An explosive real life screen thriller. Derek Luke gives an Oscar-worthy performance.

| Original Score: 4/5

...tightly-paced thriller,...although the timing and motive of a movie that glorifies terrorism to achieve a political goal is suspect considering what's going on in today's world.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10

'Catch a Fire' is a stirring political thriller with charismatic performances and sure-handed direction by Phillip Noyce.

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A true story from apartheid-era South Africa, this moving and inspiring story has a heavy contemporary resonance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

An intensely personal film that effectively reduces its scope to a thrilling, brutal, individual story.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Noyce surprisingly prefers slick surface treatment to cutting into the bones-deep legacy of South Africa's racial division. Nuanced performances and gripping laments are wasted on a sleek, empty action climax.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

This is a gripping political thriller and Derek Luke has 'The New Denzel Washington' written all over him. Highly recommended.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Luke is fine in the lead, proving that his good work in Antoine Fisher was no fluke.

Noyce's film rises on the undeniable aura of authenticity, because his story is based on real events and people. (And actors Tim Robbins and Derek Luke create vivid characters on opposite sides of South Africa's brutal struggle.)

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

Given the complexity of Chamusso's own story, Catch a Fire might have benefited from a less-ambiguous villain.

| Original Score: 2.5/4

The narrative resists the grandiosity of Vendetta and the self-righteousness of Syriana.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Despite Mr. Noyce's attempt to achieve a sense of balance and restraint, the material covers an overly familiar landscape with no special insight or sense of purpose.

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Catch a Fire ignites, incites and informs as few other movies of the fall do.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Catch a Fire was shot in South Africa and is well-acted by Luke and Robbins, who give their characters complexity and subtlety.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Catch A Fire is an interesting combo of biopic and political thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Catch a Fire is confident enough to depict the battle from all sides.

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[The film is] complex. It's rich. I think it's well-done.

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