"It is a human calculation"

Rating: 6/10 (27 January 2010)

If ever an actor was the only choice for a role, then this is it. Morgan Freeman has one of the most commanding presences of any actor in Hollywood, and here he slips so effortlessly into the role of South African President Nelson Mandela that you have to blink twice to make sure you're not watching archival footage of the man himself. It's not an imitation so much as a habitation of the role. Matt Damon, too, does an excellent job, but he does it in a very different manner. Whereas Freeman tinkers with his preexisting screen persona in just the right way, Damon completely casts his own aside, and I frequently forgot that I was watching one of the screen's highest-paid actors. Clint Eastwood, an actor himself, has always excelled at coaxing quality performances from quality performers.
In the early 1990s, Nelson Mandela was released following 27 years of incarceration. His first order of business as President, if this film is to be believed, was to ensure the World Cup success of the South African rugby team. All other politics are bluntly dismissed as gratuitous international travel or distractions during a rugby game. By evoking a significant period in South African history – the end of apartheid – Eastwood tries very hard to elevate 'Invictus' above the ranks of every other predictable underdog sporting story ever made, but a simple-minded approach to politics means that he never quite escapes the pack. In its final act, all matters of racism are swept aside for a World Cup final that unfolds almost entirely in slow-motion, and, since the game's outcome is never in any doubt, the sequence drags with corresponding sluggishness.