Invictus

Clint Eastwood’s film began with Morgan Freeman, who bought rights to John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy and took the Mandela role. The weight is not on rugby. The middle stretch goes to friction inside Mandela’s protection detail, where former state security officers work beside ANC guards. Reconciliation plays out there, not on the pitch. The match cutting came out of necessity. Matt Damon is far smaller than the real Pienaar and never went into contact; by his own account a boot to the face would shut production for a week. Eastwood keeps his lead out of collisions, delivering the game in fragments and crowd reactions. Chester Williams, the only Black player in the 1995 squad, coached the cast; the final was shot where it was really played, at Ellis Park in Johannesburg. The director’s son Scott Eastwood plays Joel Stransky. Freeman was nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, Damon for Actor in a Supporting Role; neither won, Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz taking those awards. The title poem by Henley is a choice too: in 1995 Mandela handed Pienaar Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena passage. Overseas takings more than doubled the American ones. A good fit if you will watch reconciliation built in a bodyguard roster, not a scoreboard. Not for anyone expecting the 1995 final to run unbroken.