This review was written for the Toronto International Film Festival screening of "Catch a Fire." 

TORONTO -- Continuing to tell stories of conflict between indigenous people and white intruders, Phillip Noyce goes to 1980s South Africa for a feature that is less ruminative than "The Quiet American" and "Rabbit-Proof Fence" and more likely to connect, if on a modest scale, with American audiences.

The story is initially one of how an apolitical man can be transformed into a militant insurrectionist by witnessing the misuse of power. Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke) is as straight an arrow as they come when we meet him: Foreman at a petroleum plant, he wants no part of the covert rebellion happening around him. When stopped at a police roadblock, he'll obediently end every sentence with "boss."

But when he's arbitrarily arrested after an explosion at the plant - and sees what inhumane treatment can be visited not only on innocent suspects but on their relatives - Chamusso is convinced to enlist with the African National Congress.

His interrogator, Nic Vos, will be described later as a monster. But as played by Tim Robbins, the anti-terrorism officer has a tragic element as well. We see the decisive point at which Vos violates his principles in an honest attempt to prevent violence - and while he bizarrely asserts at one point that white South Africans are the ones being oppressed, every now and then Vos' eyes betray some doubt in his cause.

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.

It's only at this point that "Fire" engages fully, drawing strength from music as "Rabbit-Proof Fence" made a character of Australia's vast terrain. South Africa's "freedom songs," which cloaked revolutionary messages in what sounded to outsiders' ears like happy folk music, are brought to life here, fueling ANC military drills and bolstering the spirits of prisoners. As the title suggests, this story also reclaims Bob Marley's music, reasserting its revolutionary anger after decades of appropriation by American kids more interested in pot than politics.

A family drama runs through "Fire," but its role here is less sentimental than dramatic. Screenwriter Shawn Slovo, daughter of ANC figure Joe Slovo, is especially sensitive to the effects of revolutionary movements on families and vice versa. (Chamusso has issues with fidelity that complicate things further.) This thread plays out surprisingly, and keeps anyone involved from looking impossibly noble. Noyce and Slovo may never overtly question whether blowing up an oil plant was an absolutely essential step in the march to end Apartheid, but they're not about to make saints out of anyone either, no matter how repugnant the other side was.