"Invictus"
(2010, Nelson Mandella, USA)
Average Contributor Rating:
based on two reviews, displayed below in descending order.

I suppose I better show my hand before the flop, to mix my gambling metaphors. I’ve been a follower of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team for quite some time, and so it should come as no surprise that Invictus poses a quandary for me, as it will for others. After all, Clint Eastwood’s latest film uses as its dramatic lynchpin the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and in particular the nail-biting final in which South Africa edged out the All Blacks in extra time to win the Web Ellis Trophy. It poses the obvious question of whether a sports film such as this, a film in which we are meant to cheer for the underdog and be inspired by their tale of triumph, can ever be as effective for the people who support/supported the team that came out on the wrong side of the underdog’s victory. Can fans of the losing side ever truly get behind a team in a film when they know that team is going to beat their favourite team in the final minutes of the movie? In this specific case, the answer seems to be no – despite Invictus’ (oh-so-)obvious intent to inspire and uplift, the bitter taste of that 1995 World Cup Final is one that doesn’t simply wash away with a big cup of Mandela and South African togetherness. That may seem overly harsh, but it’s the simple truth – as a supporter of the All Blacks, Invictus poses a series of hurdles that can be too high to jump over. If you don’t support the All Blacks, Invictus will most likely be easier to swallow. But if you do, good luck getting over those hurdles.

Invictus manages to be an ordinary film despite all this, meaning that even if you are nursing grudges about matches long past, there’s still problems with the film. While the dramatic crux of the film is the 1995 Rugby World Cup, that’s not what it’s about – Clint Eastwood is more concerned with Nelson Mandela and how he went about healing the wounds of post-apartheid South Africa. However, this means that the film would undoubtedly suffer if Mandela happened to be the least interesting thing about it – and what do you know, he is. To his credit, Morgan Freeman does give a solid performance as the man; but then, Mandela has long been seen as the role Freeman was born to play, and it’s disappointing that while Freeman nails the mannerism, there’s only a fleeting sense of Mandela’s charisma and natural aura of inspiration in Freeman’s performance. It stands to reason, though, that the scenes involving Mandela shouldn’t be so tedious to watch when the film is Mandela’s, but when every second scene is Freeman-as-Mandela delivering a rousing speech about unity and togetherness, the film soon becomes an exercise in monotony. Thankfully, shining patches of shininess are found in the presentation of characters affected by Mandela’s work, in particular his security detail and the Springboks. Compared to one of Freeman-as-Mandela’s speeches, the Springboks holding a coaching clinic in an impoverished black neighbourhood or the blacks and whites in Mandela’s security team playing rugby together on his front lawn are far more captivating, powerful, and successful in conveying Eastwood’s message.

However, the film’s message generates yet another issue – or, more specifically, how Eastwood and screenwriter Anthony Peckham handle that message. There’s a stunning lack of subtlety to the way they go about things. Characters have thuddingly obvious conversations about “equality” and “uniting the country”. Inspirational Mandela speeches are trotted out ad nauseum. Kyle Eastwood’s and Michael Steven’s score ascends to some mad level of bluntness whenever something ‘inspirational’ happens on screen, those strings soaring like everyone’s hearts aren’t. The final minutes of the World Cup Final are played out in hilariously ill-judged slow motion. Facts are deliberately omitted in order to make the denouement more triumphant (Eastwood can deny it all he wants, it is fact that over half the All Blacks side were suffering from food poisoning forty-eight hours before the final, and many still were on the day). Christ, the first scene of the film has Mandela drive down a road, black kids playing soccer and screaming their support on one side, and a gruff white guy on the other side telling his white private school students how “this was the day the country went to the dogs”. Eastwood and Peckham seem to have a distinct lack of faith in their audience and in their subject matter, and so they amp up the drama in order to make the underdog story more stirring and motivational. However, this has the opposite effect, coming off as misjudged and condescending instead.

Invictus clearly has potential to be a great film. The subplots involving the Springboks team and Mandela’s bodyguards are well-handled, and Eastwood directs the rugby matches with a kinetic and thrilling camera that conveys just how rough and break-neck the game can be (though it may well be confusing for someone unfamiliar with the game, as the rules aren’t explained, and Eastwood’s attempt to pass Western Samoa off as a rugby powerhouse on the level of England and Australia is hilarious). However, Eastwood and Peckham seem unsure of the inspirational quotient of their material, even though they shouldn’t be, and so they foolishly go out of their way to up that quotient. This move, unfortunately, proves their undoing, and makes what could’ve been a great film a painfully average one.

Also, that haka is piss-weak. . AG.

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Chances are, you’ll know what type of film Clint Eastwood likes to make. Of course, I’m not talking about the man who made “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (1976) or “Unforgiven” (1992); the hard-boiled, intelligent, ruthless filmmaker who made those films is probably gone for good. The man who is left, the man behind “Mystic River” (2003), “Million Dollar Baby” (2004), and “Changeling” (2008), makes films that exist in the boundaries of convention. They rely on genre conventions, intense emotion, and ‘important’ societal themes to get their points across. Obviously, they are of varying quality; I’d happily call “Mystic River” Clint’s best film since 1992, whilst I would be more hesitant to praise the languid and safe “Flags of our Fathers”. And, therefore, although I couldn’t tell you before watching if “Invictus” whether it would be great or so-so, it should be obvious that it would come wrapped in a bow of conventions, with a cheesy, cliché-filled centre.

So you have the clichés that come with a Clint Eastwood film, and you can add to them the clichés that generally come with sports films. This, Clint’s latest effort, tells the story of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and the final, conclusive match-up – which takes place between South Africa and New Zealand – comes with all of the predictable sports movie hallmarks. There’s more super slow motion than you can shake a stick at, a veritable onslaught of super inspiring music, and many team-talk/monologues from our faithful leader, Francois Pienaar, played here by Matt Damon. And then throw in the fact that it’s a true story, and you have the moments that skew the line of honesty somewhat to put you off, too. Anything that doesn’t fit in with Eastwood’s blinkered view of the ’95 world cup, as Adam pointed out (in a far better fashion than I ever could), simply gets thrown out. You can see why he did it, but if you’re from New Zealand, this isn’t going to be a happy watch.

So, chances are you will be able to predict most of the things that will happen in “Invictus”, and – even more surprisingly – the way that Eastwood will present them to you. If you’re fine with that and if you know what you are getting into, then what you’ll find is a decent, gentile way to pass two hours. If you’re not, you will hate it. I’d say that I fell into the former category, and that I’m fine with the good-natured, middle-brow drama that Eastwood likes to make. However, there’re are undeniably more severe and more damaging flaws than the lack of originality. The performances are, by and large, fine. Morgan Freeman hasn’t quite perfected the South African accent, and it often flits back to the gravitas-laden Freeman voice we all know and love, but he has such a presence about him that he’s perfectly believable in the role. Matt Damon is probably even better as a man struggling to reach his destiny, struggling to make true the dream of a man more important than he is. He may lose it slightly towards the end, as the huddle-stricken team talks mount up, but for the first ninety minutes he’s perfect.

The problem, though, is the writing, which is so cliché-laden that the whole thing gets harder to harder to swallow. The problem is that its characters talk in monologues, which lose their impact simply because there are so, so many of them. The whole point in a climactic movie speech is that it’s climactic, but here we’re spoon-fed one every ten minutes. Morgan Freeman spouts off something big or important or worthwhile at regular intervals like Gandalf the Black, and although the Academy will probably love it (hell, you can even play ‘spot the Best Actor’ sound-byte if you wanted to), the whole set-up becomes a little patronising as the film wears on. The rest of the writing is uninspired and forgettable, and the same can be said about the music. Eastwood’s direction is good enough, even if it doesn’t quite reek of the same simplistic genius as “Unforgiven”, “Bird”, or even “Letters from Iwo Jima”. It’s all just so, well, by the books.

Well performed and well directed, “Invictus” is okay middle brow entertainment, and it will probably give half of the population a nice warm buzz that they’ve just watched something important and worthwhile. However, it’s a story we all know told in a manner we’re all familiar with, and as a result “Invictus” is slightly stagnant and even a little pointless. . JB.