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

This week the crew sit down to discuss children’s movies and Philippe Petit’s story of how he managed to walk a wire across the World Trade Center Towers in 1974.

Show Notes

[00:05:10] Damion talks about Near Dark
What We Watched
[00:08:33] Andrew: Land of the Lost, Bullitt, Zombieland
[00:20:00] Douglas: Death at a Funeral, Bored to Death, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog
[00:26:52] Damion: Volver, Antichrist, Special, A Christmas Tale

[00:37:27] are children’s movies worse today than they were 10-20 years ago? [ref: filmspotting ep 278]

News
Hulu to start charging for service in 2010 [00:47:54]
Keira Knightley & Joe Wright reteam for My Fair Lady remake [01:01:00]
Mad Max 4: Road Fury Confirmed with 100 million budget [01:08:10]
Rocky 7 to be made after Rambo 5. [01:13:39]
Damon and Brolin up for True Grit remake [01:18:51]

Trailers
Green Zone [01:20:00]
Invitcus [01:23:47]

Review: Man on Wire [01:33:20]

Extra Notes:
Me on FilmSnobbery Live Podcast

Once again I’d like to thank all you for listening and feel free to leave me any feedback in the comments or via email at unnamed[AT]gmanreviews[DOT]com.  You can subscribe to the podcast via the RSS, The Podcast Alley or iTunes.  We broadcast the podcast live on ustream every Wednesday night at 9PM EST, feel free to tune in and chat with us live there

Mark Whitacre [Matt Damon] is a VP at ADM.  Mark decides to contact the FBI and become an informant for a case against ADM for price-fixing.

I guess this would be an unofficial entry into The Soderbergh Series since it is a film directed by Steven Soderbergh but I had no clue that I would be seeing this during my marathon and I hadn’t planned on reviewing it for this marathon.  It plays very nicely into the idea of Soderbergh taking a staple, the corporate satire, and making it look and feel completely different.  Instead of the broad humour you would find in most films of this nature we are treated to a dark comedy that mostly involves a character study of Mark Whitacre.

My problem with this film is that it focussed so much on this character which I ended up completely hating because he is one of the biggest idiots that you will see this year on the big screen.  He, on top of being a fool, is a compulsive liar and this is possibly the most interesting part of the film since we are not told what he is saying are lies until the third act when he himself becomes the focus of the investigation and the FBI begins to dismantle all of his lies that he has told.  So we are sitting there having our minds blown as we find out a lot of what we thought we knew was not.  I feel almost that I would enjoy this movie a lot more if I were to view it a second time knowing what I know about this character.  Then I would be able to properly understand what is going on with Mark and get the funny in this dark comedy that I didn’t find all that funny the first time around.

I didn’t hate, but at the same time wasn’t very happy with the end product, but I still respect Soderbergh for seeing what he was trying to do and reserve the right to completely change my view on the film with repeat viewings.  Soderbergh was attempting to create this dark character that single-handedly take down a huge corporation for price fixing, but at the same time is a complete idiot.  One thing that bugged me is that at times I would see Mark do something that was very smart for his position, being a spy, and I would question if Mark was pretending to be stupid so that it would be easier for him to fit into the corporation and keep getting the FBI information on the crime, and then a minute later he would do something that would be completely retarded and he could’ve done the smarter thing without blowing his cover therefore confirming that he’s really an idiot.  So how did he manage to figure out how to do the smart thing a minute ago???  I don’t know, and that confuses me.

One aspect that struck me as interesting was the actual cinematography and the musical selections in the movie.  The movie felt almost like a dream due to its overly bright nature.  Since this movie is only based on the truth that Mark Whitacre was a VP and an informant that brought down the company I wonder how stupid he really was in real life.  I’d like to believe that the stupid was added for comedic effect and I’m still not sure as to whether I would’ve preferred to see a straight up serious corporate spy film where Matt Damon reimagines his character from The Good Shepherd for the FBI and corporate America.  The music in the film fit the idea of a comedy but felt so out of place since the movie was not tongue-in-cheek at all.  So I felt quite jarred while watching this, what felt like a, serious story with these songs that pointed to silly comedy and at the same time knowing this was supposed to be funny and I should probably be laughing.  It felt like going to a stand-up show and hearing the comedian pause for laughter and nothing was coming out of the crowd.

I have to recommend this as a rental.  If you watched the trailer for this movie and you’re at all interested wait for it to hit your local rental store and pick up the DVD for a fun weeknight when you’re bored and refuse to go see whatever crap blockbuster is out in the theatre.

IMDB says 7.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 76%

I say 5.0/10