Eastwood Continues to Impress

Rating: Null/10 (20 June 2010)

Invictus (2009)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Another marvelous achievement for director Eastood tells the true story of the 1995 South African rugby team who went into that years World Cup, in Africa no less, and tried to pull off one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Recently elected President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) asks captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to try and win the event not only for the upset but to bring the racial tensions of the country to an end. Eastwood has had a rather amazing run over the past couple decades and he certainly has made a name for himself among some of the greatest directors of all time. INVICTUS is what you'd call a political thriller, social drama and sports movie and we've seen each of those types of films countless times throughout the years. Even though we've seen them countless times, under Eastwood's direction we still get some fresh and original and in the end it's yet another winner for the director. What really caught me off guard was how Eastwood decided to tell the story. Yes, we get a few cliché moments but for the most part this comes off very original. You could look at all of the sports footage and say there isn't much heart or energy in the scenes. Eastwood even makes the brave decision of not explaining how rugby works as I'm sure many people watching this film have no ideas of the rules. I think this was done on purpose so that we can enjoy the sports stuff but the real heart and energy are with the people of South Africa. It's the non-sports stuff where we really feel the passion in the material and this includes a wonderfully handled sequence where the rugby team goes to the prison where Mandela spent most of his life. The scene with Damon inside his jail cell was very haunting. Even the stuff dealing with the racial tension is handled in a rather fresh and original way as the film kicks off with four black bodyguards being upset that Mandela has hired four white bodyguards. The way this sequence plays out is a fresh way of showing the racial tension and this short sequence pretty much tells us all we need to know. Another great sequence is when the rugby team is going to teach some children about the game but all the black children immediately run to the sole black player on the team. What really drives this movie home is the Oscar-nominated performance by Freeman who really does turn in one of his greatest performances here. I've heard a few people complain that he doesn't look like Mandela and that he does sound 100% like him but to me this is a mute point. What matters if the power, message and emotional power of Mandela and that's what Freeman nails. Each time he opened his mouth I couldn't help but be drawn into the power he's displaying in sheer energy. There's no screaming or shouting yet the power of the character still comes across with Freeman constantly giving off this invisible energy that will strike viewers as raw emotion and power. Damon is also very good in his role, another quiet one, that the actor really digs into and makes for a memorable character. The supporting players are all pretty much in the background but all done nice jobs. As is usual with an Eastwood film, we get a great music score full of South African music but that typical and beautiful cinematography. In the recent documentary THE EASTWOOD FACTOR, the director explains what keeps him moving and why he continues to make movies. The way he pretty much put it is that he looks for power in non-typical ways and that's pretty much what he has delivered here. We've seen countless race movies and countless sports movies but none have been quite like this. That's probably why this didn't do overly well at the box office while junk like THE BLIND SIDE wins awards and brings in cash. A shame really but this is a class act film that doesn't go for one bad cliché after another or some sort of fake drama to bring a tear.