MOVIE REVIEW: "Invictus"

Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon

Among the wealth of popular movie genres that sometimes rely on over-fluffed storylines or technical gimmicks to spark an audience reaction, sports stories lend themselves seamlessly to film and evoke an unusually high level of weepiness among otherwise tough sports fans. In the darkened safety of the theater, jocks (and, of course, other theater-goers) are free to well up over the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Though many flicks in the sports film genre rely heavily on the dramatic nature of sports to evoke inspiration (Cinderella Man and Seabiscuit come to mind), Invictus parallels that sideline fervor with the powerful political story of Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) in the turbulent first year of his presidency. Few other sports films use historical context so well to make a point. Chariots of Fire shows the haughty, snobbish side of British social structure through the lens of the 1924 Olympics, but most sports films stick to an oversimplified, feel-good script.

However, Invictus director Clint Eastwood utilizes the South African rugby team’s unlikely triumph in the 1995 World Cup and Mandela’s remarkable courage and strength to magnify South Africa’s struggle with crime, poverty and unification after the Apartheid in the 1990s.

As Mandela, Freeman ambles humbly around his office and the country, greeting each person genuinely as a worthy individual with charmingly slow, deliberate speech. Freeman’s eyes seem weary throughout the film, which is a subtle nod to Mandela’s tenacious work ethic — we only see Mandela in his bedroom once and he’s not even sleeping, he’s preparing for his daily 4 a.m. stroll.

The South African president’s exhaustive concern about his excessively fractured nation is established in the opening scene with an immediate contrast between the trim, clean rugby stadium of white athletes and the barren dirt field used by a group of black children.

In an effort to unite the country while maintaining the delicate balance of black aspiration with white fear, Mandela asks Springbok captain Francois Fienaar (a taciturn and noticeably bulked-up Matt Damon) to lead his ninth-seeded team to beat the heavily favored Australian rugby team in the World Cup. Though initially skeptical that a sporting match can repair a country’s spirit, a hand-written copy of the poem “Invictus” from Mandela gives Fienaar all the inspiration he needs to be a leader for his team, even if he is not as skilled a leader as President Mandela is. Damon’s performance is arguably strong, but often overshadowed by Freeman’s Mandela. Then again, it’s hard to compete with such a historic figure (and actor).

Sport is almost secondary in this multi-layered profile of an iconic leader, but Eastwood puts rugby front and center when it matters most — at the World Cup. The sweeping colorful crowd shots and fast-paced montages of bulky players beating each other to a bloody pulp are visually stimulating, but fail to give any context to rugby as a game. As far as I could gather, rugby is a barrage of bone-crunching tackles where every play looks foul and it seems anything goes.

Nelson Mandela was a leader who clearly saw the big picture, and Eastwood does too. The lack of sporting context is supplemented with historical context. A few fleeting details — one exaggerated slow-mo sequence toward the end that disrupts the film’s otherwise perfect pacing and many of the supporting characters’ often inconsistent accents — are the only faults in this celebratory biopic that transcends the sports film genre.