Invictus

On February 11th 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison. In 1994, he was
elected president of South Africa. In 1995, the Rugby World Cup was held in
South Africa, their first participation in the tournament since the lifting of
the boycott.

If this list of facts made you say "Yeah, I know" three times, you'll have some
idea of how I felt for the majority of the movie. As biopics go, if you were
remotely conscious of world affairs in the 90s, this will all be very familiar
territory to you. I imagine that it'll all come as big news to the under 25s
and the Americans, though.

As it goes, it's a pretty competent biopic, if a bit sentimental. Morgan
Freeman does an alright job, but hardly disguises the fact that it's Morgan
Freeman in a Nelson Mandela wig. Matt Damon plays the Springboks captain
Francois Pienaar, but he's got a much smaller part than I had expected.

Much is made of Mandela's commitment to convincing the nation to get behind the
Springboks, though to be honest, the detail of how that was achieved was a
little sketchy. Likewise, much is made of the Springboks commitment to winning
the tournament (despite piss poor test performances) but how they did that is
also quite sketchy. I mean, sure, everyone was *committed*, but hell, I imagine
the Ivory Coast team was committed too.

So, we get Mandela being very Morganfreemanesque, the bonding power of sport
being shown in microcosm among Mandela's mixed race security detail who are
wary of each other at the start and predictably hugging by the end. And we get
to watch some actors playing some very sloppy looking rugby, and expecting us
to believe that we're watching a top class rugby match. There really is too
much of that. The last 20 minutes of the film is a potted recounting of the
1995 World Cup Final, Springboks vs All Blacks, and that just gives us 20
minutes to see a) actors can't play rugby very well, b) an actor playing Jonah
Lomu is nowhere near as intimidating as Jonah Lomu, and c) that the 1995 world
cup final was a bit of a snooze fest with no tries, six penalties and three
drop goals. Bit of a nail-biter in extra time, but basically a bit of an
anticlimax. New Zealand later claimed the team was suffering from food
poisoning, and I can well believe it.

I guess if you're not familiar with the events, this is actually quite an
important film. However, I personally felt that the detail was glossed over in
favour of romance, so this isn't a film that's going to be of deep interest to
those interested in either modern history, or world cup rugby.