Invictus (2009)
Invictus (USA) Directed by Clint Eastwood Written by Anthony Peckham Starring Morgan Freeman; Matt Damon; Tony Kgorogue; Marguerite Wheatly; Patrick Mofoheng; Patrick Lyster; Julian Lewis Jones; Leliti Khumalo
The prolific Clint Eastwood gives us this adaptation (by screenwriter Anthony Peckham) of the book Playing the Enemy by John Carlin. The story focuses on the newly elected South African President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) and his attempts to rally the country around the national rugby team, The Springboks, a squad that served as a longstanding symbol of white separatism, and allegiance to a government that treated blacks as something less than human.
This is not the Mandela bio-pic one might have expected. The sweeping scope fits director Eastwood’s strengths, but Mandela’s entire personal and professional past, incarceration, eventual release and political ascension, world wide human rights activism, and national and international political life as president are not examined in any detail. Instead, the film focuses on a specific place in time, concentrating on one aspect of Mandela’s early leadership. This approach allows Eastwood to dodge the kind of episodic torpor that often afflicts films about the lives of famous people, but, perhaps naturally, much is lost in the tradeoff.
Mandela, an attorney who spent twenty seven years in prison due to Apartheid, was elected in 1994 at age seventy five, largely by blacks who were newly allowed to vote. Facing monumental challenges in uniting a violently divided country, he chose to retain the old national anthem, as well as the rugby team (both important symbols of the old South Africa), but attempted to co-opt both by altering what they stood for. The struggling team became a vehicle toward which he could channel common and collective energy, and eventually the team would, improbably, meet the heavily favored juggernaut All Blacks from New Zealand in the World Cup final.
Invictus is Latin for unconquered, a term taken from a William Ernest Henley poem that inspired Mandela while locked up on Robben Island (where ironically he also routed against the Springboks). A bit of a paint by numbers affair, at two hours and fourteen minutes the film also feels a bit long. Freeman looks the part, and though the accent is far from pristine he has the necessary gravitas to play a man known and revered the world over, something that couldn’t be said for many actors, famous or not. While the lack of consistent accent is a tad distracting, and his performance strays far from impression, he seems to capture the spirit of the man, and this hard to define aspect of his portrayal redeems the representation, making it an ultimately successful one.
Though significantly physically smaller than the real life man, Matt Damon is nonetheless fine as team captain Francois Pienaar. Damon clearly bulked/toned up for the role, and seems believable in the hard hitting sports action sequences, though American audiences may be kinder in their assessment in this area than those located in places where the sport is a national obsession. The film attempts to bridge this gap for non-fans by having the players explain the rules to a group of children at one point, although it probably doesn’t matter. Like The Longest Yard , Hoosiers , Victory, and others of the type, Invictus rests in our buying in just enough to root for the underdog team as we’re supposed to, and in this regard the rules and regulations are probablysomewhat irrelevant.
Too many platitudes and grand pronouncements are woven into the dialogue, making the film preachy and didactic in places, something that distances an audience from buying the charcters as actual people as opposed to stock types. Also, the pervading atmosphere feels more than a bit sanitized, with nary a racial epithat uttered - perhaps all but impossible in a country of extreme systemic racial intolerance, especially during this tumultuous period when tensions were at a fevered pitch. Further, though the main supporting players are excellent, there are some clunky moments from a few of the bit actors, a fact that rehearsals, more takes, and/or directorial massaging (practices abhored by director Eastwood) might have helped to solve. These combined factors weaken a film with excellent visuals, solid sports action, and an emotion inducing ending.
Invictus is not, by any means, a great film, and by nature of its structure it gives short shrift to one of the most heroic figures in modern times. As a sports film, however, it does its job.