INVICTUS REVIEW

There was always going to be a big Nelson Mandela movie with a big cast! It was sure thing. It’s like Ireland in the summer, there’s gonna be rain! You know its gonna happen!
Invictus isn’t portraying the life and times of Nelson Mandela, instead it concentrates on one particular part of his legacy, not long after he got out of prison. Invictus tells the story of how Mandela united, in the words of the movie, 43 million South Africans, through one simple medium, Rugby! And as the story goes, he manages to do a pretty good job of it as South Africa comes to a grinding halt when the Springboks reach the final of the 1995 Rugby World cup. This was back in a time where they were, shall we say, not the best rugby team in the planet. But with a little encouragement from Mandela, in particular a couple of choice words on occasion to their captain, things start turning around. And that’s more or less the story. This is the Hollywood treatment of Mandela so the fight for unity in South Africa seem’s a little too straight forward. No doubt many thing’s were left out, but the story holds together.


Mandela himself wanted Morgan Freeman to play him and If I’m brutally honest, Freeman is not bringing his A game to do this at all. Firstly, the elephant in the room is the “Soth Afrikan” accent. Freeman drifts in and out of his accent and dialects are all over the place in what has to be one of the worst “Soth Afrikan” impressions of all time. There is little consistency throughout, in particular as mentioned with the accent but his actual performance isn’t exactly mind blowing. It’s incredibly bland and flat. The other big name here, is Matt Damon, who looks about 20 years younger and to be fair, Damon really piled on the weight and does look incredibly convincing as Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks. Besides the actual Rugby matches, Damon doesn’t spend a great deal of time on screen, and contrary to the trailer, his “Soth Afrikan” accent is almost as bad as Morgan Freemans. His performance is just about adequate, but at times, it also drifts into the flat and bland category as well.


Clint Eastwood is the man behind the camera and at times Invictus is beautifully shot, and it also moves at quite a pace. That said, some of the Rugby scenes are too tightly shot and feel cluster phobic on occasion. I’m not sure how many Rugby matches Clint watched before hand, but it doesn’t seem like too many. There’s nothing wrong with the actual Rugby, after all its recreating history but the games are full of over the top sound effects with plenty of crunching and Street Fighter style punch effects. And near the end of the movie, there is a slo-mo part that is so unnecessary I have no idea what they were thinking.
So with lackluster performances and so on, Invictus must be a pretty crap movie. Well Clint, wont be getting any Oscars I’d imagine. But the movie does have a certain captivating feel and putting the dodgy performances and accents to one side, it does draw you in. And when it reaches its historic conclusion, you can’t help but feel a big smile grow on your face! And that's a good thing!