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The new movie directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, Invictus, is a tale of the rise to power of Nelson Mandella (Morgan Freeman) utilizing the countries rubgy team the unite the nation and show the kind of power and intelligence Mandella possessed.  The title Invictus was derived from a poem written by William Ernest Henley whom wrote it from his hospital bed after the amputation of his leg.  Invictus in Latin means "unconquered" and the poem was given to Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) as the leader of the Springbok rugby squad to help motivate them.

The film doesn't touch much upon the political aspects of Nelson Mandella, which is fine by me, it focuses on how he is going to get the white Afrikaners and black Africans to come together and stop their endless fighting.  South Africa's rugby team is in disaray, the locals love to root against their own team, and after gaining an automatic bid to the World Cup of Rugby since South Africa is the host nation, the squad is given no chance at even winning a game.  The movie becomes more a sports flick than anything else which could take away from using a little more politics to drive the movie but I don't think Eastwood wanted to touch upon much of that because that could be an entire movie in itself.

The film is predictable, which may be the worst part about any movie I come to watch.  You know the outcome so with the final scene coming you know exactly what to expect.  What comes from this is the acting of Morgan Freeman, which is quite superb.  Couple that with Matt Damon pulling off a decent portrayal but not flawless of being South African (accent and all) and the direction of Clint Eastwood and you have an enjoyable movie but not one that will go down as one of his better movies.

Without Morgan Freeman's acting this movie would be extremely average.  Freeman has delivered everything he could have been asked for and is the driving force behind this film. Clint Eastwood's name alone will drive audiences to theaters but they may very well come out disappointed. 

Could have definitely been better, one of the first scenes had a lot of symbolism such as the whites playing rugby on a green grass field and then across the street the blacks playing soccer on a dismal dirt and dust field which gave a strong sense of the kind of segregation that was taking place but nothing else in the rest of the movie really felt that powerful.

Grade: B-

-Aaron Yarborough