Sunday, January 17, 2010

Invictus

A bio drama about Mandela and his actions in bringing glory to South Africa in the 1995 Rugby World Cup so as to re-unite the blacks and the white, the national team, the springboks are all whites except one. As he attended one of the springboks game, the blacks jeered them. Even with his busy schedules and serious problems of crime and unemployment, he convinced the rugby board to retain the springboks before the World Cup.

Morgan Freeman as Mandela then meet up with Matt Damon as François Pienaar over tea. He tells him his intention of using Rugby to try to unite the nation though he didn't explicitly convey his thoughts. Pienaar understand and knows what he wants him to do. As they trained hard for the World Cup, the team was also order to be envoys to the poor, play and train with them. Though the team is reluntant and pissed with this arrangement with their tight training schedules but the results are good. Their support grew before the World Cup. Mandela flew by and attended one of their training sessions, almost greeted all of them by their names.

The first game against Australia, Mandela wearing a springbok jersey sporting number 6 enter the stadium, crowds chanting his name. They need to win in order to have any chance to go past the group stage, they did. They surpassed all expectations and meet New Zealand in the final. A match with little hope they will win as New Zealand crushed all opponents along the way, Lomu their most leathal threat, deem unstoppable. As the final starts, the whole nation was watching, both black and white. The match went into extra time locked at 12-12, a kick by Joel Stransky sends the crowd into delirous as SA won the World Cup. A scene outside the stadium seeing white police officers celebrating with a black boy, as the game progress and black boy and the officers turned from hostile to neutral to peace and then cheering like friends. An inspirational drama which probably raised your will that you can do anything for a while, soon after is back to reality. 7/10

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