Invictus (2009)

Hollywood finally gets around to casting Morgan Freeman in the role few would doubt he was always meant to play- Nelson Mandela. This Clint Eastwood-directed biopic is not what you might expect. Rather than a straight biography of Mandela’s rise to power, the larger focus here is sport and diplomatic relations. It may seem like an odd choice for Eastwood to pursue but it all makes sense in the end.

South Africa, 1994: apartheid has fallen and Nelson Mandela has been elected president in the nation’s first truly democratic elections. Whites, accustomed to being the ruling class, find themselves overwhelmed by the country’s black majority. The newly empowered black populace wants to make up for years of oppression by punishing whites and whites are terrified that this is their unavoidable fate. As president, Mandela steps in to unite both sides, determined to serve all South Africans and not just those who put him in office.

Mandela looks to the near future for a chance to bring the country together. In 1995 South Africa will play host to the Rugby World Cup. Mandela meets with the South African team captain François Pienaar (Matt Damon) and asks him to help unite their people through sports. They take the skeptics and dissenters head on. The team, despite being despised by blacks as a symbol of apartheid, makes in-roads with many as they travel the country and teach young black children how to play rugby. The lone black player on the team serves as the children’s rallying point and hearts across the country begin to warm to the scrappy set of underdogs as the tournament grows closer.

Biopics like this are a slippery slope. History has documented Mandela’s successes and failures as President of South Africa, so I can’t judge this film based on Mandela’s push for diplomacy and unity. That’s historical fact. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of his plan but that’s not what makes this film good. It’s the presentation of this story that matters.

The story itself is true, so very little can be said about the writing. However, the pace moves pretty well, with only a few slow spots along the way. Thankfully, the fact that it’s based on true events eliminates the bitter taste of what would otherwise be called clichés. Sports dramas are particularly vulnerable to clichés- underdogs, come-from-behind wins, powerful and tide-turning speeches by a coach or player. All of these things have come to be predictable, sometimes to the point of rolling our eyes.

The difference is always whether the story is true or not. True underdog tales may feel predictable but why would anyone make a movie about a team that remains terrible or falls far short of its lofty goals? The way I see it, if it’s a true story, you can’t say that it’s full of clichés; only that it is filled with truth.

Matt Damon (bulked up even further from his Jason Bourne days) does well as the South African rugby captain. He seamlessly portrays Pienaar’s journey from wide-eyed and overwhelmed by Mandela’s vision to a confident leader pushing his team toward greatness. Morgan Freeman is still the big draw here though. He captures all of Mandela’s sly wit and craftiness that reminds me of Ben Kingsley’s more charismatic moments in Ghandi.

Eastwood proved he could capture sports in action with Million Dollar Baby’s boxing scenes and he doesn’t disappoint here. We don’t just watch the action from the sidelines. Clint finds ways to take us on the field, giving viewers an up-close look at a brutal sport that is still foreign to most Americans. The physicality and pacing of the games work to the film’s benefit, giving us a healthy dose of adrenaline in the midst of diplomatic scheming.

I was caught off guard with the final match of the World Cup though. Unless I missed something, it wasn’t made clear that it was the final match until the trophy presentation. A little more clarity could have helped hammer home the importance of the action. Other than this, there isn’t much to complain about with Invictus. Audience familiarity with underdog sports dramas may water down the impact of the rugby team’s accomplishments but only a cynic could brush off the diplomatic triumph.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

The truth is finally revealed in the third and (hopefully) final installment of the Jason Bourne trilogy. Featuring the same level of intensity and quality as its predecessors, The Bourne Ultimatum is a thrill ride that simply must be seen.

The Bourne Supremacy ended with Jason in New York playing mind games with the CIA. Ultimatum rewinds the action a couple of weeks and shows what led Bourne to New York. Despite what Supremacy may have led you to believe, Bourne did not come to the States to get even with the CIA. The first half of Ultimatum sees Bourne once again mixed up in the CIA’s cleanup operations for the failed Treadstone project under the new and more dangerous Blackbriar codename. Through a number of patently Bourne plot twists and action sequences, Jason learns that a facility in New York City holds the key to his true identity and past.

Matt Damon is starting to show his age a bit in this film, appearing noticeably more than just a few weeks older than he did in Supremacy. While this is largely unavoidable given the three-year layoff between films, it almost works in Damon’s favor. By now, Jason Bourne is weary from all the running around and now has had only a few weeks to recover from injuries sustained in Supremacy before being tossed back into the crosshairs.

High-octane car chases and frenzied fist-flying are now par for the course in Bourne films and the filmmakers wisely put more emphasis on the story. In New York, Bourne begins to have flashbacks to his recruitment to Treadstone but the details are murky. Only a suicidal mission to return to recruiting headquarters will once and for all settle who Jason Bourne is and why. Along the way, we revisit Supremacy’s brilliant closing scene and we continue from it to yet another dramatic conclusion.

Another positive twist to the Bourne formula this time around is the interplay between the CIA deputy chiefs assigned to bring Bourne down once and for all. Joan Allen returns as Pamela Landy, who was assigned to take care of Bourne in the last film. Landy is now playing second fiddle to Noah Vosen, played with cold, calculating precision by David Strathairn. Vosen is the head of Blackbriar, the newly retooled black ops unit picking up the pieces of Treadstone.

At first just a battle of ego and methods, the two deputy chiefs eventually turn on each other. Vosen thinks Landy doesn’t have the stomach to do what is necessary while Landy believes Vosen is needlessly abusing his power and resources. The scariest part of this interplay is that both sides have valid points in this very grey-area predicament.

As is true in real life, the resolution behind Jason Bourne’s identity is something of an anticlimax. There can be no such thing as a happy ending when you are a rogue former CIA black ops killing machine. Anyone expecting a warm, fuzzy ending will be disappointed. Then again, anyone expecting that sort of ending hasn’t really been paying attention to the story either. The ending we get is the ending we need, no matter how inconclusive it may be. The story of Jason Bourne cannot be tied up with a pretty bow.

Enough cannot be said for director Paul Greengrass’ commitment to his craft. While he only came on as director with the second installment of the Bourne trilogy, his impact on the series has been tremendous. Using a combination of fast cuts and long takes makes the action feel agonizingly real. Greengrass is wise to stick to the tried and true Bourne formula without allowing Ultimatum to feel formulaic. The CIA infighting and the sometimes confusing flashbacks to Bourne’s origins add weight and substance to what is mostly a white-knuckle collection of top-notch stunts.

What is perhaps most remarkable about this film is that it manages to live up to the impossibly high bar set by the first two installments. While other spy and action series sag in quality after a while, each subsequent film in the Jason Bourne trilogy is able to inject a new level of intelligence and ingenuity to the formula to match and honor those that came before it. This kind of consistency is a rare thing in Hollywood. After three films and five years, the Bourne movies continue to be relevant and engaging.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5

The Departed** (2006)

After finally seeing this film, I was surprised that it managed to win Best Picture at the Oscars. When I think of the Oscars I typically think of films like Gone With the Wind and Casablanca, or West Side Story and (sadly) Shakespeare in Love. Majestic in scope and in some cases artsy, these are the movies that seem to typify what is Oscar material.

The Departed, at first glance is anything but. This is such a guy movie it’s not even funny.

A tough, raw, intense police drama with a stellar cast (can any film with a Baldwin in it claim to have an all-star cast?) grabs you by the throat and won’t let go until it's done telling its story.

Okay, that’s a bit much. There are some slow scenes and it's not all action. In fact, there are some points where I found myself confused as to just what is going on. Fortunately, director Martin Scorsese straightens out this convoluted thriller come the final reel (and what a reel!).

This is a very smart film and treats its thinking viewers with a myriad of twists, turns and plenty of jolts along the way. I can almost guarantee that you will gasp and/or flinch at least once during this movie from all the drama. The Departed is simply a film that is very well put together. With this in mind, it really isn’t so surprising that it won Best Picture. It also helps that the Academy felt particularly bad this past year about neglecting Scorsese all this time.

The Departed certainly fits into the lexicon of Best Picture winners that are very well made, like Platoon, Rocky and The French Connection. Maybe it’s not quite the best picture of the year, but you’d have a tough time faulting the Academy for it.

And I guess that’s what The Departed boils down to- it may not be the greatest picture of the year, but it is one of the most complete in terms of its scope. The acting is brilliant and believable (notably only the third time I can honestly say that I enjoyed Leonardo DiCaprio's performance); Scorsese and his crew work their magic with editing, the soundtrack and score; and the story itself is very well written. But that can’t quite make up for two hugely important factors- 1) This film is a remake of film from Hong Kong called Infernal Affairs, and 2) while the film has many strengths, it doesn’t quite have the staying power that other Best Picture winners have had.

While I have never seen Infernal Affairs, and although this American version was rewritten and likely differs in ways from the original, it’s impossible to escape the stigma that a film is a remake. Instead of Hong Kong, we get Boston. A newly graduated policeman (Leonardo DiCaprio) is hired to infiltrate a notorious gangster’s (Jack Nicholson) criminal empire. Along the way there is denial, deception and death. Things are never quite what they seem, which is the film’s key strength, but it is a bit of a slight to the mind of the viewer to realize that the premise did not originate from the filmmakers presenting it. This isn’t the first time this story has been told, and we have to wonder, has it been done better?

Whatever the answer to that question is, The Departed is undeniably one of the best films of 2006. Whether it was intended to be commercially successful or just appreciable from a film lover's point of view is irrelevant. It was a huge hit, but I doubt it will be remembered as fondly as many of Scorsese’s other works. It is, to date, Scorsese’s highest rated film on my list, but hardly the most memorable.

In the pantheon of Oscar winners for Best Picture, I have a feeling that The Departed is more likely to fall by the wayside like The Last Emperor or The English Patient rather than engraining itself in minds and becoming a commonplace reference in our culture like Forrest Gump, Rain Man or Silence of the Lambs.

Good, but not quite great.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5

Syriana (2005)

This is a unique ensemble film that shows just how dangerous and interconnected the world of terrorism, politics and oil can be. Several well known actors appear throughout that film and there are a good number of impressive performances by people I had not seen before.

On the whole, it’s a challenging watch. You have to take mental notes in order to follow the story from start to finish. If you aren’t alert enough, you’ll become confused when the individual stories begin to overlap and converge.

Gripping and tense, Syriana may come off as too political for some, but that’s not the point of the film. It’s just using a fictional story to highlight the complex relationships that come along with dependence on oil.

It does begin to feel a little long-winded by the final reel, but if you stick with it, you’ll be left with plenty to ponder about.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Just as smart and dynamic as The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne should be considered James Bond with brains. While many spy movies get caught up in camp and gadgetry, the Bourne films use their wits and instincts to barrel you through one adventure ride to the next.

In this film, Bourne still hasn’t recovered from his amnesia, but he manages to remember all his combat training when necessary. Having a main character unaware of who he is and what he is capable of helps make the Bourne films enticing. We are just as clueless as our hero as to what is going on and what to expect.

Supremacy fills in a bit more on the background of the secret CIA program that trained Bourne. We also see more of his emotional side and the conflict he feels when confronting his enemies.

The movie is also very bold (explaining how bold would involve spoilers) and sets us up for a continuing trend of uncertainty. Another wowzer of a car chase and the stunt work is truly impressive. This is a must see action-thriller and an excellent companion piece to the original. I’m highly looking forward to the Bourne Ultimatum, due out Fall of 2007.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5