Invictus (12A) (From The Northern Echo)

Invictus (12A)

12:47pm Thursday 4th February 2010 in

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Stars: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Adjoa Andoh, Tony Kgoroge, Patrick Mofokeng, Matt Stern, Julian Lewis Jones
Running time: 133 mins
Rating: ★★★

NO ONE doubts that the heart of director Clint Eastwood, star Morgan Freeman and everyone else concerned in this true life drama are in the right place. But, try as I might, I couldn’t get past a “worthy but dull” feeling about the movie.

Eastwood directs simply and efficiently on locations in Cape Town and Johannesburg, giving the movie an authentic feel and the lead performances capture the essence of the men they’re portraying without resorting to slavish impersonations.

But the rugby is a mess unless you know a thing or two about the game – and there’s a lot of it, including 20 solid minutes at the end as the South African Springboks played the New Zealand team in the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

Newly-elected President Mandela sees sport, and this world cup in particular, as a means of unifying a people facing economic and racial difficulties years of apartheid.

When he notices that only the white population support the Springboks, he decides that he could unify all the races by gtetting them to support the same national team.

It’s a bold plan and one that attracts criticism from within, both his advisors and the sporting world. But he persists, enlishing the help of the Springboks captain Francois Pienaar (a beefed up Matt Damon with convincing South African accent) to help swing the nation round behind the team. Eastwood’s direction is adequate without producing much excitement or tension as the story builds up to the climactic match that will leave those of us who know little or nothing about rugby struggling to make any sense of it.