Invictus - Drama (133 min)
Rated: 12A
The vast majority of movies that tell the story of a sporting epic fall disappointingly flat. The same is true for most films recounting recent political history.
The fatal flaw in either case is that the outcome is nearly always predictable and the sporting action is seldom convincing.
But with Invictus Clint Eastwood has pulled-off the near impossible to make a gripping sport-based film, with political narrative, that has a truly universal appeal.
It is a very powerful story that cleverly weaves an account of the daunting task faced by Mandela to unite post-Apartheid South Africa with the struggle of the nation's rugby team.
Invictus is Latin for "unconquerable, undefeated, invincible" and the title comes from William Ernest Henley's poem of the same name which inspired Mandela during his 27-year imprisonment ordeal on Robin Island.
Making a poem part of the script for a film is another risky tactic, but Eastwood clearly realised that, on the lips of Nelson Mandela, he would have his audience enraptured by this powerful verse. He was not wrong.
Throughout the film Morgan Freeman is 100% convincing as Nelson Mandela and one can only imagine the huge amount of time and effort he must have devoted to perfecting Mandela's voice, mannerisms and distinctive gait.
His counterpart in the story, Springboks Captain Francois Pienaar is somewhat underplayed in a muted performance by Matt Damon. One suspects he got the role as Eastwood's pal and since his name is a sure crowd-puller on US cinema marquees.
Eastwood cleverly refrains from lacing his film with too much rugby action. There is sufficient to tell the story, but the action on the field is cleverly shot at bone-crunchingly close-quarters. Another hallmark of Eastwood's mastery of his medium.
He cleverly mingles and parallels the story of Mandela's struggle to unite a racially-divided society, after he came to power as its first black president, with that of Pienaar's bid for victory with the eyes of the world on his white-dominated team.
Throughout this pacy film, Eastwood uses solid story-telling and memorable dialogue to carry its message. Morgan Freeman delivers many profound, thought-provoking statements but always in a purely natural, almost incidental fashion.
When South Africa is selected to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Mandela seizes the opportunity to offer an olive branch to the whites and to pull-off a moral-boosting coup for the new nation.
The blacks who elected Mandela expect him to abolish the white-dominated Springboks and found a new black team, but Mandela refuses.
He understands that a Springbok win will show the world and, vitally, the Afrikaaners, that his country is capable of forgiveness and reconciliation.
To achieve his aim Mandela enlists the aid of the Springbok's Captain, Francois Pienaar, a man of few words in contrast to Mandela the orator.
Eastwood shows how Mandela triumphs against the odds and realises that he must understand the sentiments of the "white tribe" of Afrikaaners in order to unite the nation.
Perhaps it is also a parable of the struggles faced today by President Barack Obama but Invictus does not directly draw such comparisons. "Any similarity is purely coincidental..." or is it?
Eastwood has a natural affinity for strong male characters. Another favourite subject is revenge but in Mandela he has found a strong and forgiving man with whom he can completely identify.
Rather than revenge,Invictus centres on Mandela's passion to unite his country through forgiveness. It is the ultimate "anti-revenge" movie.
Tension and suspense are ever-present in the film and if there is one failure on the part of Eastwood and Damon it is to fully depict the radical change that must have come in Pienaar's mind-set, bringing him to respect and even idolise Mandela.
There is little humour in the film, save for that drawn from the edgy relationships between Mandela's ANC bodyguards and the rednecks of the South African Secret Service.
This is a biopic in which Eastwood has shown his mastery of the silver screen. He cleverly tells two intertwined stories of battles against the odds to produce a truly memorable film that must rate as one of the best "sports movies" of all time.
Herman Visagie, South Africa around 1 year, 11 months ago