Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2009

The Contenders:

Jeff Bridges: Crazy Heart (winner)
Jeremy Renner: The Hurt Locker
Morgan Freeman: Invictus
Colin Firth: A Single Man
George Clooney: Up in the Air

It's Afrikaans, not Africaan't

Film: Invictus
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

Someone needs to talk to marketing people. There are times when you can be assured that most of a film’s audience knows the history and there are times when the film audience doesn’t. In the case of Invictus, which follows both Nelson Mandela’s early days as President of South Africa and the 1995 Rugby World Cup, it’s much more the latter than the former. I’m sure there are plenty of people who know all about rugby, but the bulk of an American audience views the game with the same quizzical expression we do Australian rules football and cricket. So putting a picture of Matt Damon on the front of the DVD case holding up the trophy? That kind of spoils the ending.

Anyway, that really is what Invictus is about. Mandela (Morgan Freeman) is released from prison and shortly thereafter, with black South Africans given the right to vote, elected to the presidency of the nation. Naturally, this is a tense situation, since organized and authorized racism had been the law of the land for so long. Mandela seeks to change all of that, first be assuring the white staff members of his government office that they are welcome to stay at their posts. This is further reinforced when, needing additional security, he brings in a team of white, military trained personnel who a few years before had been trained to repress more than half of the population. None of this sits well with his head of security, Jason Tshabalala (Tony Kgoroge).