I want to confess that I have been waiting for this movie for over two years since I first blogged about the possibility that Morgan Freeman, one of my favorite actors of all time, will play the role of Nelson Mandela in one of the moments that shaped the history of reconciliation in South Africa: the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Set up at the interaction between sports and politics, Invictus has had a difficult task: to explore the complexity of the historical figure named Nelson Mandela and to capture the difficulties and contradictions of the long and tedious process of reconciliation. And to show how rugby played a role in this process. Blessed with a promising cast – Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon in leading roles – and an even more promising director, Clint Eastwood, the movie would have had the chance to become one of the greatest movies of the year. And despite the exceptional performance that Freeman put in as President Mandela, this movie is falling short of what I’ve been waiting for.

I have watched the movie a couple of time in order to make what I consider to be a fairly neutral analysis of the movie. The first time I was upset with the shallowness of the main character and the distance that the director treats Nelson Mandela with. I felt it trivialized Mandela and at the end of the day it made the process of reconciliation look easier than it were. The second time I was disappointed with the lack of focus, the random songs that kill the inspirational tone of the movie, the fact that Matt Damon does NOT always have the Afrikaans accent he is supposed to, and the lack of originality, meaning and personal satisfaction that the movie is not providing me with.

Clint Eastwood most likely had a great idea but oversold it and oversimplified it. The fact that politics and sports can be beautifully intertwined in one of the most beautiful and allegedly peaceful reconciliation of our time is definitely something worth exploring.  But that powerful feeling, personal joy, and the strength of character never stood a chance to come to light in this movie. In fact, what was supposed to be a series of moments that shaped the history of postcolonial South Africa ended up in pathetic and gloomy series of events which were poorly expressed and sometimes uncalled for. For example, most scenes in which we see Freeman and Damon together are pretty much the same: a shy, almost speechless rugby captain and an old, wise, almost parental figure preaching for unity. That not that much…

Let’s get down to the two major flows in this movie. First, I believe Eastwood took the character of Mandela for granted. He assumed we all knew who he is, what he has done, and what he symbolizes. I’m sure that my readers fall into that category. But many do not.   Simply transplanting Freeman into a post-apartheid South Africa, without giving any historical context for what that meant for the country and at what cost that freedom was won means that the average viewers who know very little about Nelson Mandela will not be able to connect to the character, to cherish him, to see him for what he is. Second, about one third of the movie is made of scenes that involve the rugby game. Without any explanations on how the game is played, what the rules are and what the stakes are, this part of the movie is painfully uninteresting. Part of the reconciliation comes through sport is Eastwood’s thesis here. He explores both sides of the story – he looks at how white South Africans relate to the game and how black South Africans gradually come to embrace it as well. By the end of the movie, they are all cheering when their team wins because they all know the rules and derive meaning and satisfaction of it. But what about me, the viewer? Well, because of the uninspired idea of not exploring the rules of the game, I am left where the black characters in the movie were at the beginning of the movie: at best, ignorant of this whole game, at worst bored and uninterested.

There is a lot more to say about the shortcomings of the movie. In the first part of the movie, we see that the newly-elected sports federation members want to dismantle the team, re-name it and get away of some of the white players. They talk about this and accept the resolution in unanimity. Then Mandela comes in and makes them reconsider. We get the feeling that rugby and Springboks are hated but we aren’t explicitly told why. Is it just because the team is almost entirely made of whites? Did the team ever do anything to the black South Africans? Were they a part of the oppression? The best explanation I came up with was that the institutionalized violence which is allowed on the rugby field has historically been associated by many black South Africans with the injustice, violence and the crude force used against them by a similar institutionalized system called apartheid. But if I didn’t know that, the question I would have on my mind would be: what’s the whole fuss about this game and this team? Where does the reconciliation come from? Why not a movie about soccer or any other game that is surely more popular in South Africa than rugby?

I talked most about the shortcomings because I’ve waited for this movie for so long and I’ve been so disappointed. Let me know point towards some of the accomplishments of Invictus. If you watch the movie carefully you will see how great Morgan Freeman is in this role and if there’s any justice he will win an Oscar for it even if the movie as a whole is not much of a success. Freeman perfectly captures the demeanor, the soft-spoken authority, the walk and the allure of President Mandela. He gets all that down to perfection. But the accent itself is so off track from the Xlosa accent that it might make some South Africans  really uncomfortable watching the movie. Getting back to good parts about this movie, some of the scenes in which the newly appointed white guards are clashing with those who thought will be the sole bodyguards of president Mandela suggest the contradictory nature and the anxieties experienced by both sides in the immediate years after apartheid was overthrown. The same applies to the frictions that some of the secondary white and black characters experience. They might not be the most representative examples of these contradictions, but they are better than nothing. We are also being taken to some of the local townships were we are allowed to take a shot at some of the local South Africans. To me, this points to the predatory nature of the movie which is profoundly resilient on the idea of consumption of otherness.  However, these scenes might actually be the only ones suggesting that South Africa actually was and is a rainbow nation.

At the end, I am left with a bitter taste: so much talent, so many opportunities and good ideas, yet such a poor result.

I rate the movie 6/10.

Movie trailer: