My Rating
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Adjoah Andoh, Andre Jacobs, Julian Lewis Jones, Tony Kgoroge, Scott Eastwood and Zak Feaunati as Jonah Lomu.
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud, Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Let’s cut to the chase, this is not a film about rugby. Sure, rugby’s in it and rugby features all the way through it but it’s not the main game.
No, the main game is about how a ‘kaffir terrorist‘ and wily old politician, recently elected as the President of South Africa, used this medium to unite his fractured country.
The film, based on the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, actually operates on two levels. Firstly, it’s a serious political drama of some gravitas that follows Mandela in his quest for reconciliation.
The sub level is the actual rugby story and for people like us who purport to know a little bit about the game you’ll be picking the eyes out of it. A true depiction of international rugby it is not. That’s because this film was made by Clint Eastwood, not for you and I, but for American audiences.
The book has been ‘Hollywoodised’ and why would they let the facts stand in the way of a good story? Well, they don’t. That said, my expectations of how Clint would deal with the rugby sequences were relatively low and, although they were more or less met, could have been worse.
One Nation
What they’ve recreated is a bit of a laugh to the aficionado, let’s call it Spaghetti Rugby, a new genre to compete with the Western. The collisions and scrums go zap, pow, wham, crack, bang….gee, just like the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder used to do.
Chester Williams, who’s expertise they used for the rugby sequences, must have thought he was playing Golden Oldies in them there bygone days. That’s because what they deliver is a half-paced version of test rugby dished up at Ellis Park…or Newlands…or is it Ellis Park….or is it Newlands? The film doesn’t actually seem to know either…….
However, what I found was that the rugby part of it didn’t really matter because the film is an excellent political drama and this theme dominates throughout. Sure, we know there’s going to be a happy ending but the journey to that point was highly charged, entertaining and to some extent emotional.
I’m not sure that this film will go down a treat in downtown Bloemfontein as I’d imagine Saffas will have mixed feeling about it, but you’ve got to say it was a major turning point in their psyche.
The background as to how this all played out was that Mandela was released from 27 years incarceration and ended his long walk to freedom in 1990. There was heavy political violence over the next few years especially between his ANC supporters (mainly Xhosa) and those of Chief Buthelezei’s Zulu Inkartha Party.
Mandela was elected President in 1994 in democratic elections and formed a unity government with the National Party (essentially the apartheid era Afrikaaner party) with former President F.W. de Klerk as his deputy.
In the leadup to the Rugby World Cup a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed to hear evidence of primarily apartheid era human rights abuses. This was the white hot political climate in 1995.
That Mandela succeeded in creating his Rainbow Nation, by forgiving and embracing his jailers as depicted in this film, confirms his standing as one of the immense political figures of the 20th century.
Anyhow, Mandela invites Springbok Captain François Pienaar over for a cuppa and a chat, and grooms the lad for….no not noncing, but to inspire him and his teammates to greater things. François steps up and convinces his racist Springbok buddies that change is on its way.
The Springboks, hated by the blacks for what they stand for, are eventually adopted and supported by the masses (who always used to barrack for the other side).
The Afrikaaners in the film are portrayed as wooden, cliched and racist – that sounds pretty accurate to me! There’s a sub-plot going on with Mandela’s black and white bodyguards, a bit like Shaft meeting the Broederbond. This is a mirror of the reconciliation process that Mandela is trying to achieve.
Jonah was this big
As for the Bokke and the All Black players, well they found a few actors that looked like a couple from that era and it sort of works. There’s a big focus on Jonah Lomu and Zak Feaunati puts in a credible performance as the big man, but it ain’t a speaking part.
Morgan Freeman gives a towering performance – believable, eloquent and just so goddamned good. If you bumped into him at Shoprite, Pick’n Pay or Checkers you’d swear you’ve just seen Madiba. This is Oscar winning stuff and the luvvies will just cream themselves over his portrayal.
Matt Damon. Well, that’s another story. He looks a lot like Pienaar but is just a short-arse in comparison. To some extent he’s a fish out of water but the septics won’t have a clue who he is or what the footy was about anyway. I reckon I could have written better lines for him though…..like ‘what choo talkin’ bout Chester’.
I really enjoyed this film, much better than I anticipated. But don’t go for the rugby, go for the drama.
As for Suzie the waitress; she doesn’t feature but then, just like the latter day Woodcock, is probably just a myth.
Tags: Francois Pienaar, Jonah Lomu, tony woodcock
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Us Saffas embraced Mandela almost to a man.
Your characterisation of Afrikaners is unfair. Just like all groups of people there are good and there are bad. There are the ill-educated working-class Afrikaners who are racist out of economic necessity as they see their jobs going to black South Africans, but then there are you intellegentsia, who are some of the most progressive, artistic, intelligent and empathetic people you are likely to meet.
Of course there are your dyed-in-the-wool racist bastards, but they are few and far between these days (even in Bloem). I saw the Boks play France in Stade de France in 99 and someone unfurled an old South African flag 3 rows down. ALL the Afrikaners sitting around me told the guys to put that flag away as it no longer represents us.
Joel, it’s an older movie, but did you ever see the movie adaptation of André Brink’s “A Dry White Season”, and if so, what did you think of it?
Hey nursedude
I’ve seen it several times. It stars several accomplished South African actors – Winston Ntshona , Zakes Mokae and John Khani.
Donald Sutherland is weak as the lead, but it is stirring stuff. In SA it was banned of course, but going to a progressive school we got a copy and were shown it.
For me the best thing about the movie is Marlon Brando, who not only nailed a South African accent (are you listening Leo di Caprio?), but nailed an english-speaking Joburg accent. In fact he nailed an english-speaking North Joburg accent. This proved to me that despite his marked laziness he was by far the best actor of any generation.
Joel, I agree that Brando’s brief role as a defense lawyer(Do they say Defense Barrister in the UK or RSA?) was an amazing bit of acting.
During the mid and late 80’s, when hollywood was going after apartheid, it was pretty rare if you saw a film with a sympathetic white South African, and you NEVER saw an Afrikaaner potrayed in a good light.
I apologize for straying off subject, would love to talk about things Saffa, drop me an email or visit my blog.
I don’t know if my Port Elizabeth -born friend Jacques has seen the movie yet, but I did lend him my copy of “Playing the Enemy”, and he really enjoyed the book, and felt it was accurate. I am curious to get his review of the movie.
I went in with some trepidation, but Clint Eastwood has a pretty good track record as a director who has done well with a variety of subjects, from Jazz great Charlie Parker(Bird) to maybe the best western ever made(Unforgiven). The movie works, but to call this a rugby movie would be like calling “field of dreams” a baseball movie.
There are loads and loads of inaccuracies and mistakes in the movie. The biggest of course were (1) Mandela’s PA was in fact a white woman Zelda le Grange, not a black one and (2) The poem Invictus wasn’t the one that Mandela gave Pienaar, it was an extract from Teddy Roosevelt’s speech ‘The Man in the Arena.’
Here’s a list of them: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1057500/goofs
That notwithstanding, an excellent political movie.
cant say i agree with anything in the movie being good, maybe the camera work and locations but everything else is self involved bollocks, there doesnt seem to be any time frame to the movie, sometimes a day is a day sometimes a month goes past in a second without explanation.
every scene ends in a sentence or action that makes csi miami scene enders look like crap. why every word out of mandelas mouth has to lead to someone looking at him as if he is a god i dont know.
the guy is represented as being without flaw (unless you count working to hard and not resting as a flaw) no character has flaw really, the people that are racist dont even get time to develop an actual character so when they realise the error of there ways it has no depth whatsoever.
its by far clint eastwoods worst movie and quite possibly one of the worst movies that will be released this year, its utter utter crap and its a real shame that people will pay decent money to see it.
With Mandela having no flaws, perhaps we could call him proteasjesus?
the character development lacks to much to even consider calling him jesus, its a name earned through greatness or typed during a registration process.
I’m not sure how the boffins in America are going to be able to follow what is going on in terms of the rugby. I expect they will be totally clueless even with it dumbed down as much as it has been.
I’ve read a couple of American reviews of the film and you’re right, they haven’t a clue and complain that the film should have explained the rules to them better. They say that the play is very repetitive and basically the same stuff each time.
Kicking a goal or ‘touching down’ (with the crowd arcing up) can’t be too difficult to work out….it sort of happens in their football also.
Yanks telling us that rugby is repetitive. Are they joking. American football: stop/start/stop/start every bloody attempt at 10 yards. The game takes over 4 hours to play, they change teams when they lose the ball, and they have 100000000 different plays you need a computer to understand what is going on… You mean to tell me they can’t figure out Rugby….. have another cheese burger you dumb yank
How does the Rugby action compare to another American Rugby movie like Forever Strong?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0840322/
I enjoyed the movie. Having read the book, I was not expecting a “rugby movie”. I thought that, on balance, the rugby was overdone and Mandela’s masterly political manipulation was underdone. I didn’t get the sense of greatness of Mandela from Freeman’s portrayal that I got from, for example, Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of Gandhi.
Who cares about minor errors of “fact” in such a movie? The book claims to be factual. The movie is a story based on that book; it does not claim to be rigidly factual.
One thing that is clear from the book: Mandela really earned his Nobel Peace Prize…not like the current occupant of the White House.
Sigh.
I could really kick into pages and pages of comments on the observations here and the movie itself but watching the movie alone took all that energy.
I was not going to watch the movie for two reasons:
1. That was a tough time for personal reasons which I won’t bore you with and
2. I did not want to be disappointed having lived the whole experience (and I don’t mean the rugby.)
So when they announced the movie I point blank refused to watch it but my wife finally convinced me.
I think any attempt to capture true history is inherently flawed. All you can ask for is honesty and I think we got that.
My three biggest disappointments were:
1. That not more original footage was used – they really didn’t need to act out the rugby games but this was probably a rights iussue
2. Pienaar is portrayed as a humble, understated character and he is EVERYTHING but. Trust me. I’ll leave it at that.
3. They really could have used more local actors. Ruben Kruger played by a Canadian. Why? There are loads of excellent Afrikaans actors in SA (Matt Damon did okay but he is way to bloody short ffs).
Is it an accurate reflection of the truth? Yes, I believe it is. Is it a great movie? No.
Is it self absorbed in any way? Absolutely not. Suggesting this shows complete ignorance.
Solid review by the way other than suggesting that all Afrikaners are racist neanderthals. Only some of us are.
The very sad news is that Ruben Kruger died of cancer yesterday.
I’m still waiting for Convictus to come out. I guess filming has come to a holt because of pre season training!!!!!!
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