INVICTUS (2009) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Clint Eastwood
Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge
Patrick Mofokeng, Matt Stern, Julian Lewis Jones
There's a moment early on in "Invictus" that has nothing to do with anything else in the movie, that captures what the picture's about in a single shot. It's when Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman), the newly elected president of South Africa, looks at his reflection in the mirror as he's about to shave. The lower half of his face is covered with lather, so that the face staring back at him is effectively half black and half white. The film is about Mandela's heroic effort to heal South Africa's racial division in the wake of the country's shift to majority rule. He did that in part by backing the national rugby team - long a symbol of white domination - in its unlikely quest to win the world title in a tournament to be held, conveniently, in South Africa. It makes for an exciting, satisfying sports movie, and a somewhat less satisfying political one. There's some obvious exposition in Anthony Peckham's script, and while Mandela's troubled family life is alluded to, the incidental imperfections that might make him seem a little less saintly tend to get lost. To be fair, it's a tricky act to pull off. Mandela, now in his 90s, is justifiably revered, not just in Africa, but worldwide. And from a storytelling perspective, the rugby competition, with its clear-cut drama and action on the field, is the easy part. Of course, on an emotional level, that's the part that really engages the viewer. And as the less exciting part of the movie makes clear, that's something Mandela understood.
