This is not a movie about rugby. It's not even about sport. Well, not quite. It does seem to want to run around the rim of the idea that sport can be more than gamesmanship. Any sports fan knows this much already. Barracking for a team, and a code can come to symbolise where you’re from and your way of life, or, as this movie's rousing climax would have it, an ideal.
Anyone who remembers what happened at the Rugby Union world cup in 1995, played between New Zealand's All Blacks and South Africa's Springboks will know how Invictus ends. For those who don't know who won, it will persuade you to care.
Clint Eastwood, shooting his 30th feature as director, dedicates a solid 18 minutes to the clash and he replays the match, a real nail-biter, in the best tradition of go-get 'em, ra-ra sports pics. There's slow motion suspense riffs, cutaways to anxious fans, whopping great close-ups of hulking athletes, their faces scrunched in grim determination. If you don't know how footy works, it probably doesn't matter (and from the battlefield heroics and emphasis on body-contact and straining muscles, Eastwood doesn't seem to understand Union's strategies and technique beyond hitting 'em hard and keeping them down!) Still, the effect of all this energy and movement is muted. Perhaps it's because Anthony Peckham's script dodges the sports-movie convention where the team dynamics are the key to the film's drama ('come on guys, work together!')
Aside from the nice, but humourless Capt. Francois (Matt Damon) we don't really get to know the blokes on the Springboks team – with the exception of one black player, Chester (McNeil Hendriks) they're all white, kind of angry and fearful about what the their new Black leaders will do to their colours and their game. But perhaps there is another more powerful reason to do with tone and texture, which has the ending play like it's a TV true-story-of-the-week, when it shouldn't. Maybe it's because the movie up to this point, hasn't really been about putting the biff in, but putting the brain in gear, with the heart not far behind.
Based on the 2008 non-fiction book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed a Nation, Invictus begins as South Africa's soon-to-be first black president is released from serving nearly 30 years in gaol. Once he takes office, Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman at his saintly best) faces a series of epic challenges, as the country moves from an apartheid state to something closer to a real democracy. Understanding that the Springboks are underdogs, Mandela seizes upon the idea of using their quest to secure the world cup as a way to unite his divided country. For rugby was the 'white' game. The black Africans favoured soccer. In the movie's conceit, Mandela 'converts' to the hated Afrikaners sport so he can push his hope of reconciliation and forgiveness.
Shot on location in South Africa, Invictus is typical of Eastwood's more understated pictures where the style is so understated it seems to be barely there. The pace is unhurried, the camera catches all in classic compositions designed to underscore the action and when he does get expressive here, near the end, where real-time action segues into a flashback of Mandela's time in prison, it's to express a powerful emotional epiphany.
For the un-initiated, Peckham and Eastwood play out the subtleties of Mandela's statesmanship in a series of terse and tense scenes early on, and they are the best in the film, because there's a lot of humour and pathos too. Set mostly in the president's home and chambers, a lot of the action is concerned with the mixed race staff of Mandela's administration. There's a particularly good sub-plot about the tensions amongst the team of bodyguards, mostly black, but including some fierce looking Afrikaners. Mandela might be 'colour-blind', but no one else is and some of the things he encounters is ugly, even if the only thing exchanged is harsh looks.
Eastwood doesn't push the sports analogy too heavily but in Peckham's script all the characters are divided into 'teams', their actions dictated by routine and reflex. It's a clever, ironic narrative riff, but Eastwood doesn't trust to let it play. Later when the black/white bodyguards start to practice Rugger in their off time, the image is enough to carry the point, but he throws in a beat with Mandela proudly declaring his plan "working." Still, there are other, richer moments where Eastwood plays 'the ball' – not the Man. When Francois is invited to tea as a guest of Mandela's, his dad asks: "What does he want with you?" and Eastwood carefully groups his family around the comment; everyone's equally suspicious of the future in this 'Rainbow nation.'
The title, by the way, means "unconquerable" and it derives from a poem by Henley. Mandela offers it up to Francois to inspire him. The moment should be corny, but it isn't. Eastwood's always been good with few words, both as actor and director. Later Francois visits the prison where Mandela suffered for so long. No one says anything. But the look on Damon's face tells us he understands why he has to win. It's the best part of the movie and it beats the hell out of Rugger for impact.
