Invictus

Went and saw Invictus the other night at the District. Yep, I love the District - holds a special place in my heart - I think from the time I ran out of the theater to get the car in the pouring rain and ATE it on the slick cement between the doors and the fountain they have there. It's a pretty funny story, if you haven't heard it, I'll be happy to tell you in the proper setting, because it's pretty comical - well, I can laugh about it now.

ANYWAY, I knew this story before the movie came out, I remember South Africa shocking the Rugby world and winning the World Cup in 95 over the mighty All Blacks of New Zealand, and the positive effects it had on post-apartheid South Africa. GREAT story, to say the least.

The movie is moving. It is a great story, as mentioned. I really enjoyed it.

BUT, as you may know if you read my reviews, it's rare that I can't find something off about even really good movies and this one definitely had somethings that bugged me. 1) Matt Damon's South African accent - HORRIBLE!!! Very distracting, and just ridiculous. Back in my consulting days, one of my bosses at PwC was South African, so I'm familiar with the accent, and Matt Damon missed it across the board. 2) The production value of the film is oddly poor. I thought maybe it was because it was shot in South Africa, but was then informed that Sector 9 was filmed there and was excellent, so who knows. For some reason it felt like it was shot in the 70's or 80's. Not a huge deal, but still strange. 3) the Soundtrack is ridiculous, and not good ridiculous. Truly lame. If you've spent any time on my blog, you may have seen the poem "Invictus" on the side bar (from whence came the name of the movie, because Mandela in his 27 years of imprisonment found solace in the words of the poem). They tried to make a song out of it and it is just bad, like movie of the week on The WB bad. Not sure why a movie with big name actors, directed (or produced) by Clint Eastwood, has such poor quality? Anyway...

So, overall, despite the aforementioned drawbacks, the movie is really good. I would have liked some more Rugby scenes, but I imagine Rugby is a hard sport to simulate, so there isn't a lot of really good action, but there's enough that when the Springboks win the match with the All Blacks, you get chills - at least I did. It was really awesome. So, I'll recommend this movie. It's not quite as touching as the Blindside, but uplifting in other ways, so I enjoyed it. I'll give it 4.25 out of 5. I don't think anyone will be disappointed if they go see it.

Hopefully, the next review will be of Sherlock Holmes, it looks awesome - Christmas Day!!!