Should Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus” grab a fistful of Oscar nominations it’ll be thanks to the Academy’s affection for the aging icon – not what you see on the screen.
Eastwood’s latest bears all the marks of a winner, from its remarkable casting to a subject matter too potent to ignore.
What a shame Eastwood delivers a superficial retelling of how Nelson Mandela used the nation’s rugby team as a symbol of healing.
“Invictus” recalls the early days of Mandela’s presidency, a time when the wounds left by decades of apartheid were still blistered and raw.
Mandela (Morgan Freeman) had the support of the voters, but many still viewed him, and black people in general, with suspicion.
So the new leader did all he could to extend a hand to his enemies, even if they had imprisoned him for 27 years. He kept some of the former administrations key executives – even the bodyguards – on staff.
And when the public wanted to dump the historic colors and name of the Springboks, the national rugby team, Mandela gently but firmly said, “no.”
He saw something many couldn’t, that the team had a winner’s instinct hidden beneath its flat performances. He understood citizens might set aside their differences if the team overachieved during the upcoming World Cup.
Mandela reached out to Springboks’ captain (Matt Damon) in order to put his political capital – and charisma – behind the squad.
Eastwood fails to convey more than the bullet points of a story that all but demands to be told on the big screen. What made Mandela act as he did? Did Damon’s character feel conflicted about being used by Mandela for political purposes, or did he come to agree with the leader’s stance on reuniting his country?
We’re never sure.
Damon proves resourceful here, giving a severely underwritten role some depth. He’s helpless when cast against his on-screen father, a avowed racist, and his girlfriend who exists here merely as a prop.
Freeman seemed destined to play Mandela on screen. The real Mandela said as much at one point, and while the performance is technically perfect the lack of texture in the on-screen Mandela will cost him a serious shot at an Oscar.
At one point a guard watching Mandela tells a colleague that their leader is a man, not a saint. But you wouldn’t know it by watching “Invictus.”
He doesn’t make a false move, and while the real Mandela’s heroics are well established, giving him the near deity treatment doesn’t reveal the man behind the presidency.
A few moments do hint at the greater movie lurking within, like watching a black child loitering around the car of white police officers just to hear the radio broadcast of the big rugby match.
Then we’re forced to watch the cliched scenes of people in bars cheering on the home team.
The Rugby sequences are shot with passion – you can hear the thud of muscle colliding with muscle, but those unfamiliar with the sport still won’t walk away itching to see a rugby match on cable.
“Invictus” is alternately inspiring and moving. It’s simply not the great movie that the real events depicted here deserve.
(Photo: Morgan Freeman stars as Nelson Mandela in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Spyglass Entertainment’s drama “Invictus,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.)
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