Review: Invictus (2009) *** 1/2

Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman in Invictus

Clint Eastwood’s Invictus covers the events of 1994 and 1995 in South Africa as the system of legalized segregation known as apartheid came to an end and Nelson Mandela became the country’s first black president. A mere 4 years after his release from prison where he’d spent 27 years for anti-apartheid activities, Mandela faced a country still torn by black anger and white fear. Determined to heal South Africa’s racial wounds, he took the surprising step of embracing the national rugby team, a sport historically favored by whites, in the hope that the team’s rising World Cup fortunes would help his country shrug off its troubled past and embrace a more hopeful and peaceful future. It’s a great true story and Eastwood mostly has the good sense to stay out of its way.

The film’s biggest surprise is Morgan Freeman. Yes, he’s a capable actor and he’s almost born to play Mandela, but he often seems to be playing Morgan Freeman (or who we think of as Morgan Freeman anyway) and the trailers for Invictus didn’t give much of a sense of how he’d be as another living human being. It turns out to be one of his most subtle and effective performances. Relying more on body language and manner of speech than physical appearance, he becomes Mandela and you almost forget you’re watching the actor.

Matt Damon is good as Francois Pienaar, the captain of the national Rugby team. He pulls off a credible Afrikaans accent to this untrained ear and he turned the layer of flab he took on for his underrated turn in Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! into the hard muscle befitting an athlete. Unfortunately, he’s not given a lot to do. He’s more of a cog in the story than a driving force.

In general, Eastwood is less interested in the individual characters (even Mandela) and in the specific history of South Africa than he is in the big picture and the grander theme of reconciliation over revenge. We’re given glimpses of the interactions of the rugby team, of Pienaar’s family life and of the tensions between white and black members of Mandela’s security team, but there’s nothing to help us latch on to any of these characters and they remain underdeveloped. It’s an interesting choice, but it tends to depersonalize the film’s powerful story and it ultimately packs a milder emotional punch than it could have.

Eastwood is a direct and simple filmmaker who eschews overt stylistics in favor of the story underneath. This serves him well with good screenplays and Tony Peckham’s adaptation of The Human Factor: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed the World by John Carlin’s is solid if unspectacular. Unfortunately, the style also lends itself to a certain heavy-handedness. Eastwood falls into that trap in a few scenes with Invictus and some of his musical choices are a little much, but for the most part he steadily and unassumingly guides the story through to its satisfying conclusion. Though Invictus is not always subtle and it lacks a personal hook that would’ve made it truly memorable, it’s a terrific story elevated by one of Morgan Freeman’s finest performances and it ultimately delivers the pleasingly inspirational kick you hope for.

Invictus. USA 2009. Directoed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Tony Peckham from a book by John Carlin. Cinematography by Tom Stern. Music score composed by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens. Edited by Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach. Starring Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge, Patrick Mofokeng, Matt Stern, Julian Lewis Jones, Adjoa Andoh, Marguerite Wheatley, Marguerite Wheatley and Leleti Khumalo. 2 hours 14 minutes. MPAA rated PG-13 for brief strong language. 3.5 stars (out of 5)

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Tags: Adjoa Andoh, Clint Eastwood, Gary D. Roach, Invictus, Joel Cox, John Carlin, Julian Lewis Jones, Kyle Eastwood, Leleti Khumalo, Marguerite Wheatley, Matt Damon, Matt Stern, Michael Stevens, Morgan Freeman, Patrick Mofokeng, Tom Stern, Tony Kgoroge, Tony Peckham