Eastwood gets it right with Invictus

Morgan Freeman in a leading role? Really? Don’t get me wrong; I love Freeman and think he's an exceptional actor with a voice that would melt butter. The thing is however he has played so many great supporting roles over the years I'd pretty much pigeon holed him along with Joe Pesci as another actor who would forever be overlooked for the big parts. Thankfully for once he wasn’t and truthfully this part seems so perfect it’s like it was written for him.

Proof of how underrated an actor Freeman is can be seen from the fact that some people have said that he steals the show in this movie. The movie would ostensibly seem to be about the Rugby World Cup win of the South African team when they were the host nation in 1995. Therefore you would expect Matt Damon to be the star but this movie is really all about Mandela. So it’s not surprising then that people believe that Freeman stole the show because they go to a movie expecting Damon and instead see a master class in acting from the silver tongued Freeman. This is also the latest directorial addition to Clint Eastwood’s repertoire and it must be said he does a fantastic job capturing the emotions of the people and the atmosphere of the time.

There are a couple of things that he could have done a little better however. There are one or two points in the movie where it makes reference to the fact that Mandela and his family had a tough relationship because of his presidential commitments. Mandela’s character was a good one in the movie but there were periods when he seemed just a little too saintly and I think a movie about a more relatable Mandela, who had trouble juggling his work and family, would have been a little more interesting. The rugby scenes were also a little lacking as they were much too slowly paced and clearly amateur but as this was probably aimed at a US audience by Eastwood I doubt it mattered too much to him. Finally the movie can be a little fairy tale at times putting a gloss on everything for the sake of the movie and ignoring a lot of the suffering that went on even after the Rugby World Cup.

All in all though this was a great movie, probably not a classic but without doubt worth a watch. Damon puts in a solid performance and Freeman puts in a fantastic one. Eastwood gets things just right and the idea that a team can inspire a nation is a very moving one. Most importantly though I feel is the way the movie comes across. The story is very political and somehow it manages to not come across as boring or condescending, a real feat for a movie of this type. Invictus struggles to be really meaningful and in truth falls a little short but when you set the bar as high as it did even that shortfall made a great movie.

By Evan Conway