Invictus: PG-13: brief strong language; 2:12; $ $ $ $ ½

By John M. Urbancich, Sun News December 11, 2009, 2:17AM

Perhaps Morgan Freeman is Clint Eastwood's lucky charm.

In 1992, the stoic actor-turned-prolific director cast Freeman beside him as an aging gunfighter in “Unforgiven,” the grand Western that became the year’s Best Picture and earned Eastwood his first Best Director Oscar.

Of course, their second pairing, “Million Dollar Baby,” brought Eastwood more Academy Awards in the director and picture category 12 years later, and Freeman his first when his role as a boxing trainer permanently placed him into Best Supporting Actor annals.

Now, both men are stepping up big time in “Invictus,” which has executive producer Freeman starring as President Nelson Mandela, and living legend Eastwood naturally directing a remarkable story of inspired and inspiring leadership.

The National Board of Review already has taken notice. A few days ago, the group of cineastes and movie scholars named Eastwood as 2009’s Best Director and Freeman as Best Actor. (He actually shares the honor with George Clooney from “Up in the Air,” which opens Dec. 18 in northeastern Ohio.)

Not surprisingly, consummate artist Freeman chooses the understated route to capture Mandela, getting all the South Africa leader’s posturing, ticks, pronunciations and facial peculiarities down pat. Meanwhile, good buddy Eastwood keeps filling the screen with large, memorable and often moving images of a country coming together because of a game.

That would be the manly sport of rugby, an activity mostly unknown to Americans, but one which helped unify South Africa shortly after Mandela’s 1994 ballot victory, the first fully democratic election in the country’s bitter history.

After his election, though, his mostly black and partisan supporters wanted to disband the country’s disappointing rugby team, called the Springboks, because they thought it presented far too many years of extreme prejudice and apartheid government.

Mandela, however, saw an opportunity to rally the country by backing a hard-fighting squad with an unlikely chance to make some noise in the 1995 World Cup tournament. To do it, he appealed to the players, particularly popular team captain Francois Pienaar, who practically lifted his teammates on his broad shoulders during one long and wildly amazing run.

Despite 27 years in prison primarily because of his skin color, Mandela often spoke of his “rainbow nation,” using words such as “reconciliation” and “forgiveness” to build it. He saw a friend and comrade in Pienaar, himself an Afrikaner who, like the bulked-up Matt Damon playing him, is more than equal to the politically essential challenge.

Even though its message, as well as the 1875 William Ernest Henley poem from which it gets its title, always will soar higher than the movie actually does, “Invictus” easily finds a place among the year’s best films. Thus, it appears Eastwood and Freeman have collaborated extremely well — again — in a crowd-pleaser that’s undoubtedly capable of instigating a surge in rugby matches around the planet. It certainly couldn’t hurt if a few more world leaders — and any average person, really — started taking a cue from Mandela’s all-embracing vision, either.

Read more by John M. Urbancich at http://jmuvies.blogspot.com/