Clint Eastwood will always be more than a Gorillaz song to me.  Any man who has with Lee Marvin, been mayor of a California hamlet, flown a spy plane with his Russian thoughts, and done more than one movie with a monkey has nothing to hide from anyone.  As he works on the third act of his career, this time as a director, he seems to certainly be working on his id out in the open.  With the Flags of Our Fathers\Letters from Iwo Jima double feature, his last lukewarm effort that was Gran Torino, and his latest, Invictus, Eastwood seems to be boldly exploring the cultural shifts among racial and generational lines that are occurring at internet speeds.

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Like some of his previous work, Eastwood brings the recent history right to the audience by telling the story of the transformation of South Africa out of apartheid in the early '90s.  Utilizing his apparent muse, Morgan Freeman, who is channeling the iconic Nelson Mandela with amazing effect, Eastwood focuses Invictus on Mandela's vision that his beloved South Africa needed more than transformation--it needed reconciliation.  Seeing the opportunity of using the South African rugby team, quizzically named Springbok, and the impending 1995 Rugby World Cup, Mandela hoists the pressure of national unification upon the team and its captain Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon. 

Damon skillfully fades into Pienaar and looks like he put himself into some sort of Benjamin Button machine that removes about 15 years.  With blue eyes, blonde hair, and a pretty spot-on Afrikaans accent, Damon does what he can to humanize Pienaar and deliver a character with some complexity in this very eruptive and conflicted time in South African history.

Based on the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin, this true story has an opportunity to really tell this new story to a brand new audience who are primed and ready for more stories of change they can believe in.  Even though Freeman and Damon do everything they can with the characters and provide exceptional imitations of the people, they come across as one-dimensional and flat. 

Freeman's Mandela is so eternally wise and long-suffering, he is never shown having a moment of doubt or conflict, either to his prior captors or to the people around him trying to provoke him one way or another.  Apparently with the vision and wisdom of a shaman and humanity of the Spirit of Christmas Present, this Mandela only serves to ensure nothing goes off the rails as the rugby team--and the movie's storyline--plods toward its inevitable rousing sports movie ending.  Damon too, is really given nothing but a cardboard everyman to use from scene to scene. 

To say either of these characters are one-dimensional would be overstating because. at least, one-dimension is a dimension.  Time and space even suffer, as we are never certain of what the rugby team is doing either on the field or in the course of the various tournaments.  They lose.  They win.  The crowds and stadiums get bigger, but there is no sense of transformation or progress.

The soundtrack of a movie is usually given one line by people writing about it, if that; however, this film requires a special shout-out for its inappropriateness, awkwardness, and often distracting misuse of music.  I guess Eastwood began this tradition with his so-bad-it's-good karaoke effort that chases you out of the theater during the end credits of Gran Torino.  That continues with Invictus.  Although we are spared any song-stylings of Eastwood, the soundtrack transitions from banal to outright jarring.  At one point, I predict you will scrunch your face and look at your neighbor in a "WTF?" fashion. 

It is with this lack of self-control that plagues Invictus throughout.  Eastwood is known for his overlong scenes and often heavy, repetitive camerawork.  Invictus is no exception.  Shots seem unmotivated and disjointed, hammering a theme into you until you swear you are going to be quizzed on the subtext after the film.  Eastwood is best when he steps down from the pulpit and tells the really good story that is right there on the page.  Instead, here he dwells on the mundane, confusing things of weight with things that are mentioned once and thrown away.  Never meeting a cut he likes, Invictus comes in at a bulbous 134 minutes but feels about a half an hour longer than that.  Based on the quality of the acting that is rawn out by Freeman and Damon, Invictus is a quality movie. But sadly, it is bloated and feels like it misses the point once the game is over.

--Greg Wilson