Review of Invictus (2009) by Tomas T — 26 Oct 2012

Invictus is a film about an African racial segregation - the Apartheid - and how renown South African politician Nelson Mandela used Rugby World Cup of 1995 as a way to reunite the black and white population of South Africa after years of confrontation. Clint Eastwood as a director is more famous for his downright bleak dramas and thus Invictus as a positive sports film is a definitive jump out of the directors comfort zone.

Story wise Invictus is rather straight forward character driven drama film with a sports aspect included. Depicting Nelson Mandela's (Morgan Freeman) arise to presidency and his clever move to use Rugby tournament as means to start the healing process for deeply divided South African nation, is initially intriguing. Morgan Freeman does a good impersonation of Mandela as a compassionate and humane leader, whereas in comparison Matt Damon's impersonation of the rugby team - The Springboks - captain François Pienaar pales in comparison. And ultimately that is where lies Invictus' problem.

The Mandela aspect of the film is 10x more interesting than anything that is going on with Matt Daemon and his rugby team. Rugby however has considerable amount of screen time with the film which made it feel unbalanced. To me, a movie solely about Mandela would have been much more interesting as the Rugby aspect failed to inspire me. Yet, as uneven as the film felt to me, Clint Eastwood knows his business - despite the dreadful long end rugby game! - and Invictus remains a decent sports film with interesting main character.