Whenever director Clint Eastwood makes another movie, it’s a pretty fair bet to say that it’s going to be Oscar bait, not because they look the part, but because they usually are just that good. His previous film was “Gran Torino,” a masterpiece that ended up getting snubbed come awards time. Now he brings us his latest bid for Oscar gold with “Invictus.”
The film tells the story of the early rule of Nelson Mendella (Morgan Freeman) when he wins a national election and takes over the presidency of South Africa after having spent over 20 years in jail. Mendella tries to think of a way to unite the country and while at a rugby game, he comes up with the idea that if their team, The Springboks, went to the World Cup, it could result in the unification that he desperately wants for South Africa.
Mendella enlists the help of the team’s leader, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to motivate The Springboks for the upcoming World Cup championship. However, winning the World Cup will not be easy. There are multiple matches that stand between them and the cup, including a face-off with a team that has decimated their opponents by quite a wide margin.
This is yet another film that falls under the category of films I really wanted to like based on the filmmakers and acting talent involved, but was once again unable to get into. It starts off well by showing us the day Mendella got released from prison, winning the election, and his first day on the job. We get the inner workings of his security detail, which is at first just two personal bodyguards that we see accompanying him everywhere plus a couple of other African men, but eventually another team is joined with them; this time, a team of four white men.
Here is a small example of the post-apartheid tension that still existed in the country at the time, but it also ends up being the most we see of it. Mendella wants to unite the nation on the grounds that these tensions still exist, but not much is shown other than the security teams and Francois’s racist father.
To accomplish the unification, Mendella chooses the sport of rugby, which is not a bad idea in principle. The turnaround of the team seems unbelievable, but since it supposedly happened this way, it really is quite spectacular. The team begins playing terribly at first, basically getting beaten quite badly in every game, but when the tournament comes around, they show what they are really made of.
However, here is where the film’s biggest problem comes in to play. It had started off as an interesting film about the beginning of Mendella’s rule as president, but as soon as he gets the idea to unite the nation through rugby, the film begins to meander through endless scenes of practices, games, and Mendella watching or checking results of the matches.
Because of this, it becomes very hard to become engaged in the film, particularly if you are not a fan of, or don’t know the rules of rugby, and if you don’t, don’t expect the film to explain it to you. The closest they get to going over the rules is explaining that the ball can only be passed forwards, backwards, or sideways. The rest is up to you to figure out, but for the most part, it looked like scoring was very similar to American football.
There are some scenes that stand out from the rest in their emotional impact. These scenes include one where the team plays some friendly rugby with a group of poor children and another in which the team visits Robben Island, the site of the prison where Mendella was kept for over 20 years. Francois visits the very cell Mendella was kept in, made up the same way he had it. There is a blanket on the floor and a chair. Nothing else.
What saves “Invictus” from sinking completely are the performances. Morgan Freeman is brilliant in the role of Nelson Mendella. Not only does he look very much like him, but he is able to evoke all of his good intentions for his country through his sudden passion for the sport of rugby. Matt Damon does a fine job in his portrayal of Francois Pienaar. The trouble is that he is not given nearly enough screentime to make much of an impact. Most of his scenes are limited to the rugby matches, turning his character into more of an afterthought once the movie ends.
Of course, all of this leads up to the big final game of the tournament, which is the last hope the movie had to make an emotional impact. Though it’s not hard to figure out what will happen, it does a decent job with the tension for the most part, that is, until about the last minute or so of the game. There are two plays near the end of the game in which everything is slowed down and all the sound effects are amplified (grunting, moaning, the ball being thrown, and the clock ticking down), which removes any emotional buildup the match had up to that point by making it become silly and slightly humorous.
To the positive side, you can also add the direction, which, for Clint Eastwood is usually a given. Anthony Peckham’s screenplay could have used more engaging elements to improve the story such as including the main rules of rugby so that the audience wouldn’t be lost while watching the matches. When it comes down to it, this part of Mendella’s life is just not that interesting. There were certainly more interesting things in his life that they could have concentrated on such as his time in prison or how he was able to run the country. By sidelining Mendella in the second half of the film in favor of rugby, he too becomes something of an afterthought, and when both of your main characters become so, something has gone wrong.
2.5/4 stars.
You can read this and other reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.