A "solid" film that condenses the tournament and the importance thereof, but nothing more than that

Rating: Null/10 (20 February 2010)

I read recently an article that had Eastwood talking about the Oscar "snub" in regards best film and best director for Invictus. He talked about having been awarded loads so it was just not his time and the article also included Freeman saying his chances of winning off his best actor nomination as being "slim to none". At no point during the article did anyone involved say anything like "you know what, Invictus is a sturdy film and a decent enough way to spend two or so hours but in terms of saying it is the best anything then that's really pushing it and if we're being honest even the best actor nod is a bit of a joke – although if there was an Oscar for best rugby film then yeah, we'd have that in the bag". Although that would have made for a terrible sound bite, at least it would have been honest because this is perfectly true and the lack of awards should surprise nobody – Invictus simply isn't a film that deserves to be held up for time as the "best" at anything it tries to do.
At this point let me stress that it is not a bad film – not at all. It is a solid attempt to do a sports movie that sums up the rugby world cup while also capturing the cultural significance of that event; and being able to pull off even one of those would have been impressive. As it is, it makes a good fist at both, good enough to be able to make for a study and pretty entertaining film but at the same time it doesn't do either well enough to hit home or to be worthy of really sticking in the memory as a film (which to me is more of an accolade than whatever they happen to give a little statue to this year). On the sports side I thought that the film did a pretty poor job of conveying the excitement and the tension of the tournament. This was perhaps understandable in a two-hour film and the focus was rightly put on the final with New Zealand. However this game was then delivered without a great deal of passion of heart (or at least not much that translated well to the viewer in the way great sports movies do). What it seemed to be doing is using slow-motion and music to hark to the great importance of the game rather than the specific tensions of the moment, and this puts the onus on the other side of the film to deliver.
In this regard the same is true – close, but not cigar. The task of summarising a sea-change in a county is not easy one and Invictus makes as good a go at it as one could fairly expect. However this is not the same as saying it gets it, because it doesn't quite get there. The script really has to boil stuff down to the essentials to make it fit into a film and in doing this it really has to simplify things to the point where there is lots of explanatory dialogue, which is forgivable about the matches perhaps but it does get a bit much to have the political challenges in South Africa treated this way. These two short-comings (for this is what they are rather than failings) both combine to produce a film that is "OK" and is about as good as it is fair to expect given the subject matter and the approach.
In terms of DVD sales, the film now has its "nominated for Oscar" heading for the cover although I half agree with Freeman in his summation of winning – I agree they are none. His nomination is for his character more than him because his performance is weak. His accent is OK at times and awful at others and his attempts to get Mandela via body language and the famous smile doesn't come off because both feel a little forced, like a man doing an impression. Funnily enough this is good enough for the material but it is only an "OK" performance. Damon is better in terms of accent and performance although he has the same material and there is only so much there for him. The cast beyond these two are solid and nobody is "bad" by any means. Eastwood directs in a solid and professional manner but, like the material, it is perhaps all too obvious and predictable. The only really bad aspect of the film I thought was the selection of soundtrack – the songs used are regularly either "stock African music" or some awful ballads designed to try and wring emotion out of the viewer when the film itself is not – I thought the music was terrible throughout and had the opposite effect of what it was aiming for.
I sound very negative but I did actually like Invictus – but note the choice of word in "like". It is good enough to "like" and it is good enough to quite enjoy while it is on. It falls short in all it tries to do and while it sort of does a sports movie and captures the importance of the sport it doesn't do it that well and it really fails to translate this to the audience. Solid enough to be worth a watch (you won't curse the time you spent) but not good enough to be more than a "likeable" film.