Catch a Fire

I have always been drawn to films about the plight of South Africa and Apartheid...films like "Cry Freedom", "Power of One", and "Cry, the Beloved Country". And it is this attraction to those films that brought me to "Catch a Fire" starring Derek Luke and Tim Robbins.

A compelling but ethically confusing story about how one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. A man who is mistakenly suspected of bombing an oil refinery and whose family is subsequently tortured to support the claims. It is this torture (a very powerful scene when he discovers his wife in a cell nearby as screams through the bars..."what kind of man are you!") that turns him toward "terrorism" and ending apartheid through violent disruptions.

The ending is powerful when we meet the man himself the story is based on and how the whole ordeal has changed him...he no longer believes that revenge and violence will solve the problems in South Africa.

Don't know what exactly to say about the overall themes without diving into the philosophical and ethical undertones of revenge but often find myself wondering what I would do if my family (God forbid) were ever put in harm's way.