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So, there's this concept that i'd like to call "being overally Hollywood", which is basically, a person people like to put on a pedestal, so, no matter what he write/direct/produce/create, people would go all the way to support him even if the final product is dissatisfying. the person in hand is Clint Eastwood. now, there is no doubt that Clint Eastwood is a talented, respectable director, but no-one is talented enough for people to trust him blindly, for instance, when "J.Edgar" came out in 2011, it was boring as hell, yet, people would still call it a good movie, hell, the same goes for "Lincoln" by the incredible 'Steven Spielberg' but people are afraid to call it as they see it, because they see a famous Hollywood Trademark slapped to the side and call it good no matter how bored they were, so, guess what i'm doing? i'm calling it as i saw it, a dissatisfying, uninspired, soleless borefest, that is 'Invictus'.
First of all, the idea of making a movie about Nelson Mandela is huge, the guy is one of the best revolutionaries of all time, so, you know as well as i do, that since this movie didn't receive much attention, it because it's sucked. it many not mean literally sucked, because of the overally Hollywood cast, but it didn't achieve anything through out the 2 hours borefest. i mean, we all remember 'Gandhi' from 1982, the movie went on to win 8 academy awards, including best actor and best picture, and you can argue that this movie was more about the rugby team than it is about Mandela, and 'Gandhi' was about 'Gandhi' more than 'Invictus' about Mandela, but the movie had the potential to be a masterpiece, i mean, 'Morgan Freeman' as Mandela?, and Matt damon as captain of the rugby team 'Francois Pienaar'?, that's fuckintastic, and should be as good as it gets, but sadly, it wasn't.
The movie tells the story of Mandela after he became the newly elected president of south africa in 1994, in which he decide to fully support the rugby team, the 'Springboks' to win the world cup of 1995 which held in south africa in order to bring people together through sport. 'Springboks' at that time represented prejudice and apartheid and featured all white players, and black crowds were going to the games just for the sake of cheering the opposite team, so, Mandela met the captain and inspired him to win the world cup after all hopes were lost for the team, because of the many consecutive loses, and the fact that the union tried to disband the team.
The movie was really slow, and featured some horrible performances, very unexciting scenes, little to no dialog, horrible accents and the most uninspired sport movie ever. i was actually shocked when found out that Matt Damon got an Oscar nod for a supporting character, i mean, don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic actor, but he had absolutely no screenplay, he was just there to be there, not to say anything. being the captain of the team, you'd think he'll have an inspirational talk with his teammates, once or twice, but none, absolutely none. the movie is about a sport, and it wasn't a sport movie. i've always had this image in mind about captains, screaming at the top of their lungs, yelling at teammates, inspiring them, saying something dramatic, yet, there was nothing to see here from he captain, he didn't even say anything to the team when they decided to throw away the national anthem lyrics, so, i thought, "if he didn't say anything now, i'll doubt that he'll say anything, ever" and i was right. it's a movie about a sport that doesn't get you excited at all, almost every scene were cold and slow, and overall lifeless, it was like a chore for the director to get these scenes and that's just sad.
More sad than that was Morgan Freeman performance and accent, it wasn't something big, which it should've been, it was just decent enough to look okay, and i expected lots more than that from one of the best supporting actors of all time, one with all the experiences, but come to think of it, i know now why he was never a leading man. his accent comes and goes and came out as painful, his performance wasn't encouraging or inspirational as the words he was saying. you'd expect some pain flow through these lines when he talks about prison, but nope, you'd expect some depth while saying these beautiful words and encouraging people to love and forgive, but nope, he should have prepared way more than that, because one does not simply get the chance to play Nelson Mandela for the whole world to see and then screw it up. it was like "so, i just stand in-front of the camera and say my line? okay, ready when you are", and that's a major flop in the movie, being the leading man delivering something uninspired nor exciting.
Now, sure, there were some few good qualities about this movie, like the writing, which i loved, the way the movie looked, casting of supporting characters were mostly okay, not all of them though, since, there's this cliched racist father, and there's also the cliched mean news anchor and the major elements of the movie were torture, so, it's hard to overlook these things.
Overall, the movie was slow, soleless and uninspired, and a sad turn out since it had all the potentials to be a great one. it was also very boring for a movie about a sport and would have been lots worse if it weren't for the 'Clint Eastwood' trademark slapped to it. i mean, if we can exchange the big names in this movie for exactly equal performances, like, instead of 'Morgan Freeman' bring a guy with much lower profile, and instead of 'Clint Eastwood' another lower profile, yet equal in skills, this movie would be an abomination.
5/10
