The game defining a nation

Rating: 7/10 (21 September 2015)

I once was lying on a beach in South Africa and noticed a bunch of white school kids jumping off the school bus and heading towards the waves but they were not there to swim or surf. They had a rugby ball with them and in effect running with the ball while others tried to tackle them. It was a beautiful sight.
It just shows how popular and important rugby is to the whites in South Africa. To the blacks, soccer is more important. To them rugby was the game of the oppressor, hence why they would support the opposing team.
Invictus mashes up the early months of Nelson Mandela's Presidency of post apartheid South Africa and the Springboks preparation of the Rugby World Cup to be held in South Africa in 1995.
The ending of apartheid meant that South Africa were allowed to compete in international competitions and the hosting of the rugby World Cup was swift reward.
The film therefore has two threads. Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) treading carefully in a country where the white minority are fearful of the future as shown by the distrust with his own security personnel which now includes the black ANC members and the white security team of the former president.
At the same time you have the national rugby team lead by captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) whose team is almost all white, which has little support from the black majority who want the team renamed and worse they are on a losing streak, criticised by former players and pundits. Its a team lacking in confidence and support.
Invictus is a film of how the country and President gets behind the team and how the team responds. Its a true story which resulted in a South African victory against the All Blacks who had the fearsome man mountain, Jonah Lomu. The abiding image of the final was Nelson Mandela appearing in the final to greet the team wearing the green and gold of the Springboks.
The film is directed by two times best director Oscar winner, Clint Eastwood. A criticism of Eastwood is that he is the epitome of an efficient director lacking a signature style. Invictus is a good example of this. If you missed the starting titles, you would actually think that its made by a solid British director than an American legend.
It is a dependable film with some substance. How can you not fail with such a true story? You have the inspiring Mandela played by Freeman with a twinkle in his eye. Damon is more earnest as Pienaar realising that he needs to lead more than just a sub-par team to the Rugby World Cup but needs to reunite decades of racial divisions in the new South Africa.
However the film never goes above such platitudes. I imagined this film in the hands of a younger Richard Attenborough who would never had stooped to use CGI to fill the stadiums. He would had got 60,000 extras and made the film soar and given it a harder edge and I do not mean just in the rugby scenes which seemed a little off to me lacking the blood and guts of the actual game. Eastwood leaves you with a soft centre.