Movie Review

Invictus (2009) Movie Review
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language
Reviewed By: Franco Nervi on October 30, 2014
Genre: Sports Drama
With: Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman
Directed By: Clint Eastwood
Distributor: Warner Bros. pictures

“Times change, we need to change as well” Francois Pienaar, Capitan of the Springboks said these emotive words to motivate his team before the match, referring that they could change the history winning the match versus the all blacks. This movie has a genre of sports drama mixing with a crude social reality, this sports drama shows how Nelson Mandela follows the idea of unifying a whole country by winning the rugby world cup.

Invictus faces the horrible reality between two different nations, the British culture that were the minority of 43 million people that lived in South Africa and the Native’s African people. Nelson Mandela who lid a violent opposition to the regime of Apartheid, that were in the government in that moment. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and condemned to life sentence, he was released 30 years later in 1990 and he started working as a representative of the multiracial democracy.    After the victory of his party he was elected president in the elections of 1994 and he was the first black president in South African history. This movie is based in real historical facts, like the decision of Nelson Mandela of using the rugby world cup to find the support of the white minority and reducing the racial tension that could caused a civil war, trying to unify this two cultures.

Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in Invictus, invited a Francois Pienaar, (Matt Damon) the captain of the Springboks to a cup of tea on the presidential house to argue about winning the World Cup. Francois Pienaar motivates his team to make an effort trying to win the world cup.

The Springboks started winning a lot of matches and they get very quickly to the final. In some parts of the movie Nelson Mandela felt’s very gloomy when he remembered his days in jail. The Springboks made a beautiful social work visiting some poor children and they spend one day playing with them and showing what Mandela’s proposition was. The Springboks who made an enormous effort to get to the final were very afraid to play the match against the All Blacks because they were very powerful as a team. I will leave you here because I don’t want to disclose the great ending of this film.

I totally recommend this movie because it reveals the different social classes in South Africa at that period, and how a president didn’t feel any remorse to the people that arrested him, because he wanted to unify a whole country, to make a democracy in South Africa. The movie has beautiful pictures and scenes that show us the poorness of that country. Also the Springboks team was acted by real rugby players except the main actor: Matt Damon.