Movie Review: Invictus

Invictus is a dramatization of the story of Nelson Mandela as he took over the Presidency of South Africa, particularly his involvement with their national rugby team that won the World Cup in 1995. Directed by Clint Eastwood it's certainly minimalist even though it's two hours long. It's basically a sports film; underdog team improves over a year and half and wins the cup at the end (I don't think that's spoiling anything). But for a two hour sports movie I still have no idea how rugby is played (except there are no forward passes and a field goal is 3 points). I only know the names of two players on the team, the captain Francois Pienaar played by Matt Damon and Chester, the team's only black player. I don't even know much about their path to the finals and their improvement over time or how they accomplished this feat, only that because South Africa hosted the World Cup they qualified automatically and weren't expected to otherwise.

The film is really about how this team's success was a factor in healing the post-Apartheid country. Rugby had been enjoyed by the whites, but everyone can appreciate an underdog. Mandela saw this and worked behind the scenes to inspire the players to succeed. In fact, Morgan Freeman's Mandela is probably has more screen time than Matt Damon. We see a bit of how Mandela inspired Pienaar via meetings and letters and just being himself. There's a great conversation where Mandela wonders about ways to inspire people to be better than they can imagine. What we don't see is how Pienaar then goes about inspiring his team. We do see various other people, security forces, secretaries, families, children all come together to root for the team. In fact we see that a lot. A few people I was with found that a bit heavy handed, and I somewhat agree, but I thought it worked.

The two hours went by quickly but I keep coming back to how little there was too it. It's mostly emotional beats and impressions that register. Early one there's a point about how at the stadium only the whites are flying the old flag and only the blacks the new one and Mandela wonders how to change this. I found it really odd that I didn't clearly see, and now couldn't tell you, what either of the flags look like. I now realize that's not necessary for the plot point but I don't think I could have conceived of telling the story that way.

Nevertheless, as a standard sports movie with a good payoff, the film works well. As an emotional story about the healing of a country inspired by a truly great man, it also works well. Well worth seeing.