Invictus Review

Would you like cheese with your film? How about extra cheese? How about a giant dollop of cheese served with some thickly cut ham?

80 year old Clint Eastwood (Seriously Clint, you've nothing to prove, spend some time with the family) has turned the Oscar bait movie into an art form. Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby (I have to say I do really like that film), Flags of our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima, Changeling and Gran Torino were all made with that golden trophy in mind and released in the latter part of the year to keep the films fresh in the minds of the Academy members, most of whom are as old as the director who made them. With Invictus however, Eastwood has surely made his oscar bait masterpiece, a film dripping worthiness, oozing earnestnees from every pore.

Somewhat predictably we get Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela (personally I would have much rathered Chris Rock), released from prison and elected president of a country still torn apart by the evil that was apartheid. Their national rugby team The Springboks, led by captain Matt Damon, are supported predominantly by the whites and are losing badly. When South Africa is chosen to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Mandela sees an opportunity to heal the country and unite it through sport. So he meets Damon, impresses upon him the importance of victory, turns up at a meeting of the national rugby organisation who are voting to get rid of the name and colours of the Springboks to change their mind, learns the sport, learns the players' names and generally helps ensure the people get behind the team as, against all the odds, they make it to the final. (Spoiler: They win.)

Is it just me? Am I just too cynical of films now? I don't think I am. Here is a run down of just a few of the highlights of Invictus. The moment when Matt Damon visits Mandela's old cell and sees the ghost of Mandela superimposed into the shot. Didn't something similar happen in Rocky Balboa? The moment when what sounds like a boy band comes on the soundtrack and starts singing "I'm colourblind" in what must be the worst music cue I'm ever heard in a film. The moment when black hands and white hands together clasp the World Cup. The moment when the black housekeeper realises her white employers have got her a ticket for the world cup final and she turns to the camera giving a smile of such pride... This film is about as subtle as a kick to the nads and it's a shame because it's a real life "too good to be true" story that could have been genuinely inspirational. But Eastwood can't help but ladle more and more icky sentimentality into every last moment, rendering the whole affair naff and corny and oh God I'm picturing the housekeeper's smile again...

Freeman and Damon are fine in roles that, particularly in Damon's case, are really very passive but it all comes back to the cheese. Honking, stinking cheese clogging up the screen.

I've actually got nothing else to say about this film.

I'm colourbliiiiind...

3.5/10