Movie Reviews: Invictus

Making a crowd-pleasing film about rugby, a sport virtually unplayed in America, and South African reconciliation may be exceedingly hard to pull off, but many critics are saying that Clint Eastwood has done so with Invictus, which stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as the captain of the South African rugby team.


A. O. Scott in the New York Times says that Eastwood has managed to turn out "an exciting sports movie, an inspiring tale of prejudice overcome and, above all, a fascinating study of political leadership."

The performances of Freeman and, to a lesser extent, Damon are also receiving much acclaim.


Freeman, writes Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News, is so in-tune with the former South African president's persona you can't take your eyes off him."

For Freeman, it's "the role of his career," writes Lou Lumenick in the New York Post.

And Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune writes that "Damon is becoming one of the truest, most reliable actors of his generation."

"The key to Invictus is not players running around on a field," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. "It's two stellar performances and a story that stirs hearts and intrigues minds."


Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times confesses that he would have preferred to see an actual biopic about Mandela and notes that numerous such screenplays have already been written.

"They all had one thing in common," he writes. "They didn't get made. ... Eastwood made the film that did get made."

Ebert describes Invictus as "a great entertainment."

-IMDB News