I will look back on the 2000s as the "Clint Eastwood decade" in film. No other director, in my opinion, had as solid of a track record, with nary a misfire out of the nine films he cranked out over the past ten years. He was Woody Allen-prolific, and that's saying something, as Allen himself continued what is basically his "one a year" pace and even returned to his quality highpoint this decade with "Match Point."
Eastwood did better still. When I get around to making my list of the top 40 films of the 2000s, it will certainly include "Million Dollar Baby" and "Letters From Iwo Jima." The day this man is asked by the big guy to join him upstairs will be a day of self-imposed mourning. Longer than a day.
Preparing to hit 80, Eastwood reenters his familiar award-season-release territory with INVICTUS, starring Morgan Freeman (a faithful friend and collaborator of Eastwood's) as Nelson Mandela in a no-duh act of casting. Who else is going to play Mandela? Those of us who have read about it know that Freeman and Mandela met once. They got along famously and Freeman studied him, vowed to play him when the right script came along.
I don't know if this was the right script, but it was the right director. I say that I'm not sure if it was the right script because - by all means - Mandela is worthy of his own biopic along the lines of "Malcolm X." In INVICTUS, we are limited to a snapshot of Mandela's political career from after his relase from prison and his election as president of South Africa through his first year of office. And even in this regard, his political work and the business of healing his severely divided nation is limited to the subject of rugby.
Yes, rugby.
INVICTUS thus becomes an odd sort of hybrid film. It is a swift, surface look at one of the greatest social healers since Gandhi, with an uplifting message of forgiveness and healing that is matched only by its equally traditional sports film message of overcoming the odds and winning for your country. That tired cliche gets a dusting off here, though, because it's not just weepy sports movie hoo-hah. Instead, the victories of the South African rugby team are, in essence, requested by Mandela as a means of national healing. As the story goes, Mandela chooses to support the rugby team (mostly representative of white Afrikaners and exclusive of blacks, with only one black player on the team) to make a public statement about forgiveness. He urges every black South African in his path to do the same, and you can tell how difficult this is.
Mandela takes things further, retaining the employment of many of the outgoing administration's white staff, even placing his security in the hands of white guards. This makes his head of security, who is black, suspicious of Mandela's safety. Suspicion turns to terror for him when Mandela continually insists on attending the mass-attended rugby events. Mandela's black staff members fully anticipate an assassination attempt by a white rugby fan in the audience.
When Mandela begins his rugby-promoting campaign, the sport is either largely unknown to black South Afrikaners or they root for any team that plays theirs. By the end of the World Cup run, the team appears to be unifying South Africa much as the Olympics seemed to unify China when hosting the last Olympics. This is bigger than your local sports team. We're talking bringing a nation together. It's amazing that sports can do that, but they continue to prove themselves capable of such a task.
Sorry for all of the backstory...I haven't even gotten to the quality of the film itself. Should you see it? Yes. Because although it is not Eastwood's best film of the decade, I fear that we have begun to take him for granted now as a director. So easy and effortless is his recent work, so relaxed in pace and clear in focus, that some might mistake his films for being movies that lack artistry. It is true, calling Eastwood an "auteur" might be a claim that is easier to refute than to defend. The guy started the decade by putting old men in space and ended it with his own version of "Miracle." In between, he tackled World War II from both sides, brought back Dirty Harry (in some form) with "Gran Torino" and explored the social injustices committed by the LAPD in the early 20th Century. So much for consistency in stories.
But if a consistency in theme is what is required of an auteur, it might be worth looking a little deeper. That might be there. New York Times critic A.O. Scott argues that Eastwood's calling card is revenge. In a strange way, even INVICTUS can be seen as a "killing them with kindness" sort of revenge on the system inherited by Mandela. It certainly gives me something to think about.
That concept notwithstanding, INVICTUS falls into the category of the smaller-feeling Eastwood films. The non-flashy ones, like "Gran Torino" and "Million Dollar Baby." And there have been more of these kinds of films from him lately than larger-scale affairs like "Iwo Jima" or the unusually production-heavy period piece "Changeling." But the smallness of INVICTUS might just be its strength. The limited view of the Mandela administration only serves to magnify Mandela's character and methods. And Eastwood's focus on the rugby aspect of Mandela's first year, intentionally or not, gives us one of the greatest sports films of the decade.
Matt Damon, I have yet to mention, is fantastic as the captain of the rugby team who is surprised to find the president of his country as his mentor. His accent sounds like it was tricky to master, and Damon nails it. Though a short actor, Damon piled on the muscle and looks believable as the leader of a team in such a physical sport. The mostly unknown faces that support these two main performances are all solid. There's no bad acting here, a flaw that bothered many detractors of "Gran Torino" (and one I've had to admit to myself upon repeat viewings of that film).
I was moved by INVICTUS in ways I guess I expected to be, so perhaps the film was somewhat predictable in that sense. Eastwood's direction is never flashy, so there are no grand visual moments of cinematic potency to remember. But maybe it is Eastwood's restraint that makes him so great. Because even though I still can't understand how in the hell rugby is played after watching INVICTUS, I cared a lot about those guys and what that final victory meant. Yes, the film was quiet, but it was quietly powerful, too.
3.5 out of 4
Eastwood did better still. When I get around to making my list of the top 40 films of the 2000s, it will certainly include "Million Dollar Baby" and "Letters From Iwo Jima." The day this man is asked by the big guy to join him upstairs will be a day of self-imposed mourning. Longer than a day.
Preparing to hit 80, Eastwood reenters his familiar award-season-release territory with INVICTUS, starring Morgan Freeman (a faithful friend and collaborator of Eastwood's) as Nelson Mandela in a no-duh act of casting. Who else is going to play Mandela? Those of us who have read about it know that Freeman and Mandela met once. They got along famously and Freeman studied him, vowed to play him when the right script came along.
I don't know if this was the right script, but it was the right director. I say that I'm not sure if it was the right script because - by all means - Mandela is worthy of his own biopic along the lines of "Malcolm X." In INVICTUS, we are limited to a snapshot of Mandela's political career from after his relase from prison and his election as president of South Africa through his first year of office. And even in this regard, his political work and the business of healing his severely divided nation is limited to the subject of rugby.
Yes, rugby.
INVICTUS thus becomes an odd sort of hybrid film. It is a swift, surface look at one of the greatest social healers since Gandhi, with an uplifting message of forgiveness and healing that is matched only by its equally traditional sports film message of overcoming the odds and winning for your country. That tired cliche gets a dusting off here, though, because it's not just weepy sports movie hoo-hah. Instead, the victories of the South African rugby team are, in essence, requested by Mandela as a means of national healing. As the story goes, Mandela chooses to support the rugby team (mostly representative of white Afrikaners and exclusive of blacks, with only one black player on the team) to make a public statement about forgiveness. He urges every black South African in his path to do the same, and you can tell how difficult this is.
Mandela takes things further, retaining the employment of many of the outgoing administration's white staff, even placing his security in the hands of white guards. This makes his head of security, who is black, suspicious of Mandela's safety. Suspicion turns to terror for him when Mandela continually insists on attending the mass-attended rugby events. Mandela's black staff members fully anticipate an assassination attempt by a white rugby fan in the audience.
When Mandela begins his rugby-promoting campaign, the sport is either largely unknown to black South Afrikaners or they root for any team that plays theirs. By the end of the World Cup run, the team appears to be unifying South Africa much as the Olympics seemed to unify China when hosting the last Olympics. This is bigger than your local sports team. We're talking bringing a nation together. It's amazing that sports can do that, but they continue to prove themselves capable of such a task.
Sorry for all of the backstory...I haven't even gotten to the quality of the film itself. Should you see it? Yes. Because although it is not Eastwood's best film of the decade, I fear that we have begun to take him for granted now as a director. So easy and effortless is his recent work, so relaxed in pace and clear in focus, that some might mistake his films for being movies that lack artistry. It is true, calling Eastwood an "auteur" might be a claim that is easier to refute than to defend. The guy started the decade by putting old men in space and ended it with his own version of "Miracle." In between, he tackled World War II from both sides, brought back Dirty Harry (in some form) with "Gran Torino" and explored the social injustices committed by the LAPD in the early 20th Century. So much for consistency in stories.
But if a consistency in theme is what is required of an auteur, it might be worth looking a little deeper. That might be there. New York Times critic A.O. Scott argues that Eastwood's calling card is revenge. In a strange way, even INVICTUS can be seen as a "killing them with kindness" sort of revenge on the system inherited by Mandela. It certainly gives me something to think about.
That concept notwithstanding, INVICTUS falls into the category of the smaller-feeling Eastwood films. The non-flashy ones, like "Gran Torino" and "Million Dollar Baby." And there have been more of these kinds of films from him lately than larger-scale affairs like "Iwo Jima" or the unusually production-heavy period piece "Changeling." But the smallness of INVICTUS might just be its strength. The limited view of the Mandela administration only serves to magnify Mandela's character and methods. And Eastwood's focus on the rugby aspect of Mandela's first year, intentionally or not, gives us one of the greatest sports films of the decade.
Matt Damon, I have yet to mention, is fantastic as the captain of the rugby team who is surprised to find the president of his country as his mentor. His accent sounds like it was tricky to master, and Damon nails it. Though a short actor, Damon piled on the muscle and looks believable as the leader of a team in such a physical sport. The mostly unknown faces that support these two main performances are all solid. There's no bad acting here, a flaw that bothered many detractors of "Gran Torino" (and one I've had to admit to myself upon repeat viewings of that film).
I was moved by INVICTUS in ways I guess I expected to be, so perhaps the film was somewhat predictable in that sense. Eastwood's direction is never flashy, so there are no grand visual moments of cinematic potency to remember. But maybe it is Eastwood's restraint that makes him so great. Because even though I still can't understand how in the hell rugby is played after watching INVICTUS, I cared a lot about those guys and what that final victory meant. Yes, the film was quiet, but it was quietly powerful, too.
3.5 out of 4
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