Invictus is a film based on actual events about a South African rugby team.  It is directed by Clint Eastwood and was up for two Academy Awards.

Invictus was a film I was looking forward to seeing very much.  It had everything going for it.  Clint Eastwood directing, underdog sports story, and the drama from the end of a long apartheid.  Unfortunately, I don’t think the movie could tie the last two together.  It fell flat where the sport was concerned.  As a sport movie this is one of the lamest I have seen.  Movies about sport can be stirring when we take a journey with the athlete.  But Invictus can’t do that because of all the Mandela scenes.  We know one of the athletes and just briefly.  He is more of an acquaintance than a beloved comrade.  We just aren’t given the background information to care about the athlete characters.  Therefore, we are just left with scenes of sport cliche.  Now we look at the movie from dramatic aspirations.  This was undoubtedly a gripping time in South Africa where age old terms of apartheid are crumbling and new justice is rising.  So much hate had to be shed and all we are given is a father’s smart ass comments to his television, and a coach’s one-liner to his kids, the first words of the film.  That’s it?!  There were more feelings of racial tension in Malibu’s Most Wanted.  Where is our conflict and resolution?  Despite my criticisms, I did not deplore the film completely.  Mandela’s portrayal as the constant struggler along with his Dalai Lama values were somewhat uplifting.  It was just so disappointing to me.

“It is the taste of defeat. Drink it, remember this and promise yourself never to taste it again. You’re right, it tastes like shit.”

4/10