Great work from Freeman and the story, but everything else feels average or amateur at best

Rating: 6/10 (17 December 2009)

While not exactly a biopic per se, Invictus does tell an important piece of Nelson Mandela's (Morgan Freeman) life as President of South Africa. With the country's rugby team losing horribly match after match, he looks to Captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to help unite the team in time for the country's hosting duties of the 1995 World Cup, and in turn, unite a country still reeling from apartheid.
Clint Eastwood continues to defy all Hollywood conventions with Invictus, his ninth film of the decade. The man is going on 80, but he is pumping out more movies than heavyweights like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. And with each passing film, he continues to up his craft and his scope for what he is capturing on screen. While Invictus is nowhere near the epic undertaking of the twofer of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, it still stands as a very accomplished work. But much like Flags, it is a very flawed work.
The story itself is fairly well done. It is predictable of course, but is sappy in some wrong places. It is not quite Remember the Titans for adults like I heard it described as, but it borders on feeling much the same way. I find it interesting that the first real story we get about Mandela dramatized on screen is more about rugby than it is about the man, but Eastwood presents it in such a fascinating way that it manages to work as a depiction of him. There is a great reverence on display from the beginning, with actual TV footage digitally manipulated to add in Freeman over the real Mandela, and at every turn, the story stays consistent with these early images. It jumps around in focus between Mandela and Pienaar, but it never feels bothersome and always feels like a well rounded tale. Unfortunately, that tale does not always stay as interesting as it could.
But while the story is not bad, the editing is all over the place. After really beginning to hit his stride, Eastwood seems to be falling back and looking more amateur in some of the scenes on display here. Some run too long, others too short. Others are left far too open ended, and some too preachy. Even worse, some scenes have characters fading in and out like ghosts, pushing a heavy handed message about the unfairness of the system too far. Having seen his previous work, it is clear Eastwood knows better than this, so why allow these elements to take away from what could be a fantastic piece of work?
The ending rugby match that seems to run on forever has a lengthy period of time where everything runs in slow motion. While this is typical for a sports film, especially for the team playing, Eastwood makes everything run in slow motion: the team, the fans watching in the stadium, the fans at home and at bars, Mandela himself. And it runs for more than five minutes like this, overkilling and destroying any suspense or tension the film has going for it because the audience begins to laugh at how ridiculous the scene looks. It reminded me a lot of what I can only explain as the 'Gatorade' sequence from Spielberg's Munich, where one of the most intense scenes in the film is ruined by a goofy slow motion sequence. It takes you right out of the movie; the last thing any filmmaker wants to see happen.
The music fares even worse. While the African inspired songs that play throughout the film are very well used in their sequences, there are a few English-speaking songs that are just wrong for the film. Thankfully Eastwood does not sing any himself (unlike the hilariously bad tune that nearly ruins Gran Torino), but the lyrics are just awful. Again, they took me right out of the film, and made me laugh more than anything. They may help describe what is going on, but in the forms they are given to us, they do nothing but take away from everything. While I was a little disappointed to hear another similar Eastwood score in other cases, the addition of an African influence causes the score to sound all the better and more original. The man can only use a similar score for so many films before it becomes stale, and thankfully it is altered to sound all the more unique.
While his accent is not perfect, Freeman delivers another fabulous performance. The man may be ageing as quickly as Eastwood, but his technique never wavers. His soft spoken and generous nature is only complimented by how easily he slips into the character. He has just the right amount of power and gravitas in each scene that it is hard to realize it is not actually Mandela playing himself on screen. It is a very personal performance that is just as inspiring as it looks. It is not the performance of the year, but it comes really close to competing with it.
Damon on the other hand, does not fare so well. He just does not come off as believable as the rugby team's Captain. His accent falls somewhere between Freeman's great accent here and Nicole Kidman's horrible attempt at Italian in Nine. But even despite that, his character is just not compelling enough to make us really care about his struggle to help Mandela achieve his goals. When he does make it work, he does well for himself. But those moments come too few and far between.
I wanted to like Invictus more than I did. Freeman delivers, and the story is fairly well done as well. But the rest just feels either average or amateur at best. The film is not bad, but it could have been significantly better edited.
6.5/10.