Review of Invictus (2009) by Valéria V — 06 Mar 2011

Every time I watch a film of Clint Eastwood's now, even before any dialogue begins, you can always tell it's one of his pictures. He always starts with that classic black and white Warner Brothers Pictures intros. He's got this specific style that is definitely his. Anyway, he rarely disappoints me. I think that as time has progressed, he has become more and more amazing as a director. He's without a doubt one of the best in the business. I guess being an amazing actor wasn't enough for him. He's got a dozen classic movies in which he's directed. "Invictus" was another one of his awesome movies. Though it wasn't a masterpiece, I still found it to be excellent.

Basically the movie starts off when Nelson Mandela begins President of South Africa. There is still persecution and segregation going on in the country, and though on paper it might not seem so, it's true. Mandela thinks of a way to unite the country together. He comes to the conclusion that if the Rugby team can win the world cup, than not only will the nation unite, but it will reflect the country's greatness to the rest of the world. Matt Damon plays the captain of the team, and Mandela inspires him to go after greatness. It's an awesome concept for a movie, and it was executed fairly well.

I thought that both Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon were very good. Though I thought that Damon's accent was a little unbelievable, his passion and determination was still present in the film. The same exact thing goes for Morgan Freeman. These two guys are obviously not South African, but they still put on good performances.

The cinematography in the movie is what I particularly liked. A lot of awesome tracking shots during some of the rugby matches, along with a lot of beautiful South African landscape sequences, are all amazing. It's also got this definitive Clint Eastwood color to it, which is unmistakable when you watch it.

The music was pretty good too. Though Eastwood's nephew did a lot of the singing, and that was kind of odd, a lot of the compositions are done well.

I'd also just like to point out that I thought Freeman's narrations were wonderful. I don't know...some of the lines just had a huge impact on me. They were quite beautiful.

"Invictus" is a very good movie. It's great for so many reasons. I particularly enjoyed it's presentation, and how the plot was delivered. I felt like the movie flowed in an interesting way, and it's message is clearly heart-warming. Definitely a movie to see.