Now and Then.

Who the...?

Harendra Kapur.
Kyra Mathews.
Tejas Menon.


Ello All


This'll be a short one again.
Invictus, for those who haven't been waiting anxiously, is the story of how Nelson Mandela asked the South African National Rugby team, the Springboks to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela. Matt Damon plays the team Captain Francois Pienaar and to round it all up, Clint Eastwood has directed it.

As you can imagine, it's hard to conceive of anything going wrong with the movie.

Fact of the matter is, not a whole lot goes right.

It's a tremendous story and the dedication to facts in set design and screenplay is phenomenal. Even the actors (In fact they are Rugby players themselves) playing Rugby legends Chester Williams and Jonah Lumu are thoroughly genuine.

But for some reason something like 90% of the films actors are either local actors or just locals. While that certainly seems like a good authentic idea, honestly, it killed the movie for me. True the accents were real and true it's a novel approach, but there was no charm, no feel and therefore just flat delivery. Fact of the matter is, while it's interesting to try 'real', on camera it just came off as even more 'fake.' A bad fake.

Even the proper actors, failed to impress me. Matt Damon, possibly trying to be a closer rendition of Pienaar was not a typical film 'team captain'. He was downplayed and quite refreshing. I must admit though, I only think he's not been roundly slated for the role because it's a true story. In terms of film roles, it's certainly not his best.

Morgan Freeman was, as he always is quite superb in delivery and charm. The problem for him, if he is hoping for an Oscar, is that I don't think the lines he was required to say were nearly good enough, even if he did say them so well. Although that's a similar problem Forest Whitaker had and well, he managed just fine.

It comes down to this. Excellent story. But the screenplay just let it down so often. Eastwood's direction did so much to help but the lines were hammy, the story didn't have anything surprising about it (Except of course for Good Luck Bocke, which was just awesome- even if it weren't true!) there was never anything to keep you going and in the end it all seemed like a hagiographic attempt at glorifying Mandela. Yes he is deserving and yes he is awesome but for God's sake get a room. Also, the end slow motion montages seemed like they just ran out of footage. And there were several small shots and camera angles which seemed so out of the blue the film lost rhythm.

Speaking of which, may I just say Kyle Eastwood is one of my favorite new music writers. If there is one thing that makes this whole movie worth it, it is the sound track. And I'll save you the trouble, he IS Clint Eastwood's son.

In a final analysis, watch it. It's a great story. But don't expect anything huge. It's not the greatest film.

So far 2010- I'm a bit disappointed.


3 responses to "Invictus: A Review"

  1. is Kyle eastwood, clint eastwood's son?

    Tejas

  2. Haha! Tejas, I swear, you just took the words from my mouth.

    Mehvash

  3. From mine too also, teehee. We are all most unoriginal.
    Great post though.

    Kyra

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