Review: INVICTUS

Much like Clint Eastwood’s film directing career (and, I guess, the same could be said for his acting career, as well), INVICTUS, the latest film directed by the DIRTY HARRY star, works in fits and starts, crests and troughs that characterize the film as uneven at its worst times and  incredibly  powerful at its best.

Deep within its contours lies a moving story of Nelson Mandela, played by Morgan Freeman, in his early years as President of South Africa.  Mandela was a member of a people so mistreated during apartheid that it shocked and amazed everyone when he made the proclamation that his country was moving forward, no recourse or even ill will, for that matter, would stop him from bringing the once-established glory back to his country.  Bubbling up and out from this and giving the film the rousing edge that very nearly feels misplaced is the story of the Springboks, South Africa’s national rugby team, whom Mandela believed was the answer to his prayers of unifying his country behind one, common goal.

The Springboks of this time were primarily made up of white Afrikaner members, the leader of which was Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon.  Mandela believed if he could get his country, made up of tens of millions of people who were oppressed by this very race, behind this team and their attempt to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, he could finally move the nation into a world of more civil unity than what had come before.

The story is commendable, one that has every business being told, and it is surprising that it has taken nearly 15 years to find its way to film.  With Eastwood behind the camera, the technicality and execution of every nearly every scene is beyond satisfactory.  Nothing about Eastwood’s direction ever grazes the surface of being superb or vastly superior to the best films he has done before.  Eastwood has long since given up on trying to best himself from one project to the next, and this is more than likely the reasoning why his directorial trajectory has dipped and soared like clockwork in the past decade.  You feel the passion at play in films like LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA and MILLION DOLLAR BABY, but you also feel the stagnant hand of impassivity in films like GRAN TORINO and FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS.  Both of these are films with a heavy handed message, one that slaps you in the face early on and keeps doing just that for over two hours.  Unfortunately, this is found a lot in INVICTUS, as well.  We have scenes that make their point.  Some, such as Mandela hiring white guards at the behest of his already stationed and black security, make this point very quickly.  Then, for no reason whatsoever, this point hangs around, repeatedly making us aware of its presence until all we can do is pray the film will quickly move on to a different, more graceful, point.

It never really does.  The film seems to be moving from one, heavy-handed point to another, lining them up like free goals just waiting to be kicked in.  There are moments that could have been, should have been, amazing.  A scene where the Springboks visit Robben Island, where Mandela spent the majority of his 27 years in prison.  The scene with the rugby players wandering through the prison halls, Pienaar enclosing himself in Mandela’s very cell, and with Morgan Freeman’s voiceover reading William Ernest Henley’s poem, “Invictus,” would have been powerful enough.  For some reason, Eastwood feels the need to have the prisoners and Mandela himself appear to the sight, as if ghosts still haunting the prison.  Pienaar looks down at a chair in Mandela’s cell, and a see-through image of Freeman sits there.  It’s supposed to elicit emotion.  In actuality, it elicits hokeyness.  Evidently, becoming the master of your own fate and the captain of your soul means accomplishing that which is only achieved by dead Jedi.  It is scenes like this that could have worked with more subtlety attempted, but it falls flat on its face with all that is piled on.

However, despite all of this, there is an odd power that stems from INVICTUS, a sense of inspiration that comes from the quality in screenwriter Anthony Peckham’s script and from the performances given by the film’s two leads.

Freeman and Damon are excellent, particularly if you give Damon a handicap for the sometimes forced Afrikaans accent he puts on.  Freeman never disappoints, and he captures the essence of Mandela in this performance with minimal effort.  He is an actor who soars when it comes to playing men with much love to give, and this characterizes Mandela through and through.  The same amount of grace cannot be said for Damon, who appears in some scenes to be doing literal battle with the accent he must convey.  However, in more scenes than not, he clinches this accent perfectly, and, in many scenes, the pure physicality he must deliver in the role makes the usage of an accent completely moot.

These scenes, the rugby scenes, provide the rousing, stand-up-and-cheer moments that you would expect from any, good sports film.  There is very little explanation of the rules set forth in rugby.  A scene where the Springboks visit a group of child, wannabe soccer players gives only the basics, but we know who is winning, and we know who is losing.  Sometimes that is enough to get your heart pumping in unified excitement for the team.  Eastwood does not have much subtlety when it comes to marrying the Mandela scenes with the rugby scenes.  The scenes where this is attempted seem clunky and off-paced.  However, while the sum of the two parts never come together to form anything glorious, the parts themselves are often enough.

In the end, INVICTUS is a powerful movie, inspiring even in certain moments.  There is a lot to be thankful for in the performances of the two leads, and they have a major hand in making Eastwood’s film feel more sincere and genuine than even he gives it.  Predictable, hokey, and oftentimes heavy-handed, but those are the troughs, and the crests delivered in the film soar so high they succeed in making completely lose sight of those lesser moments.  The same can be said for Eastwood’s directing career as a whole.  INVICTUS ends up being an emotionally engaging film of blatant peace and love activism.  You wish it to be better, but you are, ultimately, satisfied with what it is.