As he approaches 80, living legend Clint Eastwood shows no signs of slowing down, nor shirking from challenges as a filmmaker.
The Oscar-caliber “Invictus” entertainingly delves into South African politics and rugby, two normally forbidding subjects for American audiences.
Thanks to expert performances by Morgan Freeman (as Nelson Mandela) and a buffed-up Matt Damon — as well as Eastwood’s old-school storytelling expertise — this movie depicts an unlikely intersection of sports and leadership in ways that manage to be inspiring and insightful without ever becoming schmaltzy or preachy.
The story takes place during a few months in 1995, when South African President Mandela — like another president you may have heard of — was struggling to unite a badly divided country.
Mandela shocks even his closest advisers when he decides to become the country’s biggest booster of the Springboks, the national rugby team beloved by the white Afrikaner minority that had brutally ruled the country through decades of apartheid.
At the same time, the Springboks — with one black player — were seen by the black majority as a symbol of apartheid, with Mandela’s supporters even trying to disband the team before he steps in.
A pragmatist who had closely studied the Afrikaners during his 27 years as a political prisoner, Mandela realized that humiliating his former enemies would only further destabilize the country.
Mandela finds an improbable ally when he reaches out to the team’s apolitical captain, Francois Pienaar (an excellent Damon), who only wants to turn around his perennially losing squad — and orders the team to tour shantytowns where black kids prefer soccer to rugby.
Can Mandela actually rally the entire country around the Springboks as they seek the Rugby World Cup?
Anthony Peckham’s intelligent screenplay — adapted from John Carlin’s book “Playing the Enemy” — cleverly represents the polarized South Africa through Mandela’s security detail.
Because of the security squad’s public visibility, Mandela insists that menacing Afrikaners from the apartheid regime be retained, joining his longtime supporters from the African National Congress.
The film climaxes with an exciting championship match against New Zealand’s All-Blacks squad, which ironically takes its name from the color of its uniforms rather than its members.
While the unusual formations are fun to watch, I can’t say I actually understand rugby from Eastwood’s film, which is far more concerned with Mandela’s unconventional efforts at racial healing.
It would be easy to turn Mandela into a saint, but Eastwood and his longtime collaborator Freeman, in the role of his career, never let this happen.
While upbeat and optimistic, Mandela is shown as a man with a healthy sense of humor and personal regrets — separated from his (never seen) wife, Winnie, and barely on speaking terms with a daughter who does not share his spirit of reconciliation.
Handsomely shot on location in South Africa, the slightly overlong “Invictus” takes its title — Latin for unconquered — from a poem that Mandela used as an inspiration during his lengthy imprisonment.
Most filmmakers would offer a lengthy flashback or speech from Mandela about this experience.
Eastwood, though, tells you all you need to know about the horrors of apartheid through the look on Pienaar’s face when he visits Mandela’s tiny cell.