Invictus ***1/2

Invictus is about many different things. It is about the maturation of South Africa into a nation where both apartheid and white presidents are out. All of this happens unbelievably quickly. Imagine if the United States voted a black president into office in the 1860s, or even the 1960s. Unfathomable. South Africa was going through radical changes in the early and mid-1990s, but Invictus tells the story a little differently. The film is about a nation coming together under the guidance of a man—Nelson Mandela—and how he tried to reconcile the hopes and fears of the traditionally mistreated black majority with the powerful white minority. But it is also about sports, in this case rugby, and how a simple game can transform and unify a people and a country.

Morgan Freeman plays Mandela as a quiet yet charismatic man, at once both laidback and stubborn. He moves slowly and deliberately, and he is clearly carrying familial turmoil, decades of imprisonment, and a lifetime of fighting for what he believes in. So when President Mandela asks the captain of South Africa’s national rugby team to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, many of the characters in the movie are confused, but the audience cheerfully accepts the challenge. As the captain of the team, Francois Pienaar wants to appease the president, but he mainly wants to win. He is portrayed by Matt Damon as an open-minded white South African. “This country’s changed. We need to change as well,” Francois says to his club. With inspiration from Mandela, Francois transforms his team into both a formidable rugby team and the new symbol of South Africa. On the president’s orders, they travel to the slums and put on a camp for children. The team visits Robben Island Prison, where Mandela spent nearly twenty years of his 27 year prison term. These sequences are the most satisfying. They show how so much can change so fast.

In the end, the film is about rugby and race and politics, about a couple of men whose fates intertwined to help resuscitate democracy in a country suffocating the freedoms of its people.  As a film, it is educational and inspiring. The third act drags longer than necessary, but it does little to lessen the film’s overall impact. As a director, Clint Eastwood has proven that he can consistently make really good films, and he has certainly owned this decade in that category. However, I daresay he has not made a truly great one since 1992’s Unforgiven. Invictus, while good, is no exception.