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Thursday, December 24, 2009

CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG: Review of Invictus

Invictus is well meaning and sincere, directed and written by people who have no trouble wearing their hearts on their sleeves. The L.A. Times here compared it to such classic biopics as The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola. I agree whole heartedly with the Times, but the problem I had is that the Times considered the comparison a compliment; I’m not so sure. All those films (what I and Jerry, my best friend in Chicago, call a typical Warner Brother’s biopic) are well done, often entertaining, with some great acting, as is Invictus. At the same time, they never really rise above what they are and there’s something a bit safe and stodgy about them as well. By the time this story of Nelson Mandela’s attempts to bring unity to South Africa by championing a rugby team came to an end (a sport only supported by the minority whites while Mandela was imprisoned by aforesaid whites), the only real impact I was left with were the incredible rugby scenes, a series of grueling, cruel gladiatorial matches. Where the rest of the movie got the job done, these scenes went for the juggler and succeeded. Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela. It use to be James Earl Jones who always played God; somewhere along the way when people weren’t looking, the divine torch got passed to Freeman as if they were running for the Olympic Committee. Morgan’s good and one can feel just how tired and weary this man is. Matt Damon as the captain of the rugby team does very well with his South African accent, a distancing effect that seems to help him give one of his better performances. The screenplay by Anthony Peckham (who also penned the new Sherlock Holmes movie) covers all the bases and is a solid enough journeymen script. The direction by Clint Eastwood is the same. All in all, I recommend highly a movie on the same subject that did not get all the hoopla Invictus did: Endgame, a film first shown on BBC Contemporary and then was released to the movie theaters. It’s less ambitious in scope, but more successful in what it tried to do.

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