After Nelson Mandela [Morgan Freeman] is released from prison and elected the President of South Africa he uses the upcoming Rugby World Cup to help bring his nation together and get them past the Apartheid system that was abolished only 4 years earlier.

This story is less about Rugby and more about how Nelson Mandela used the rugby team and the world sports film.  It’s a tired genre which is put on screen almost a dozen times each year, however I still enjoy it.  So this being the first time I’m seeing this genre put rugby in the spotlight for me was odd, since this is a sport that I know little about.  Is your understanding of the sport important to your overall enjoyment of the movie?  I didn’t think so, but I found myself mostly confused throughout the rugby matches so much that if it weren’t for the fact that every so often the camera would show me the scoreboard or have a character go “what’s going on?” because that’s what I was thinking during the matches.  I felt almost like I needed that moment that we got in Fantastic Mr. Fox where they explained Whackbat (even though that was for comedic purposes more than anything) here.

However, even without any understanding of the games it was easily understood the effect the team’s performance had on the nation.  For a nation that was filled with racism and now led by a black man to come together over a sport that most of the nation didn’t like or even understand just to me seems oddly impressive.

The event itself somewhat reminds me of a couple of years ago when the Caribbean hosted the Cricket World Cup and seeing the packed Sabina Park for each West Indies match and seeing the crowd respond to the moment in history we were viewing.  The West Indies didn’t go on to win (of course) but the ambience that was created in that stadium and what I felt was definitely what this film recreated for me and I can only imagine what it would’ve been like to be in that stadium during the final match with South Africa v. New Zealand.

I personally didn’t find myself enjoying Morgan Freeman’s performance as Nelson Mandela more than I was experiencing it.  I find myself in an odd position where I know who Nelson Mandela is and I actually remember the caricatures of Mandela more than Mandela himself.  As the movie pressed on I stopped thinking of Dave Chappelle’s impersonation of Mandela and started to believe in this person that was on screen, so I do agree that Morgan Freeman gave a good performance but I’m not sure how many people my age would actually see Mandela rather than Freeman being Mandela on screen during this movie.  I personally enjoyed Matt Damon a lot in this movie.  He played the tough part of trying to seem neutral in all respects and just want to play rugby, but truth in fact you could see how he deep down hated a lot of his teammates for how they felt about everything going on in their nation.

Overall this is a movie I’d recommend with a grain of salt.  You have to be able to sift through the themes that are very well hidden in the not so easily pushed narrative to comprehend points that feel more culturally relevant for the time and people of South Africa than anyone else.  However, if you can you will see a great story of how a country came together under what seems an unlikely circumstance.

IMDB says 7.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 77%

I say 6.0/10