Hits, But a Miss: 'Invictus'

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"INVICTUS" COVERS ITS sports-movie bases quite well. Games — in this case, rugby in post-apartheid South Africa — are ennobling and metaphorical. There are off-the-field struggles and inspiring locker-room speeches and a Big Game that Really Means Something. But what the movie really needs is less talking, more crunching. The best parts of sports flicks are when muscle meets muscle or fist meets face or, in the case of "The Cutting Edge," Moira Kelly's head meets ice.

Clint Eastwood tries his best to capture the pure brutality that is rugby — a sport that, to the untrained eye, looks like Calvinball on crystal meth. And he has some success; a lingering shot of the final match's last scrum focuses on a heaving sea of backs straining against one another. And some of the crunchiest hits communicate how much it hurts to get slammed, without pads, by a 200-pound guy running as fast as he can.

But "Invictus" doesn't quite match the success of Peter Berg's "Friday Night Lights." Eastwood's camera is often too far away, and he relies too heavily on slow-motion — great for seeing sweat fly, but the speed of a good hit is part of the fun. And in a movie such as "Invictus," where the nonviolent scenes seem to exist only to build to one grand pronouncement or another, it's up to the athletes to bring the pain — too bad Eastwood doesn't, in this case, hit hard enough.

Written by Express contributor Kristen Page-Kirby
Photo courtesy Warner Brothers