The dreadfully boring poster for Clint Eastwood’s yearly Oscar shoo-in has landed, with Warner Brothers going for the time tested little-head-inside-a-big-head design template.
Interestingly, they’ve decided to give us the back of Morgan Freeman’s (Nelson Mandela) head while bringing the rosy glow of Matt Damon’s (Francoise Pienaar) much more sellable face to the fore. The poster is rounded out by a rousing crowd shot, politely ignoring the film’s heavier post-Apartheid-era setting. As this is one of the highest profile films to ever tackle Nelson Mandela’s post-prison life and presidency, we find it a little troubling that the studio doesn’t have enough confidence to show the face of one of the most popular political figures of our time.
The film about the relationship between between the South African leader and the country’s rugby coach as they prepare for the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and how it plays out against the larger backdrop of the post-Apartheid nation still healing from its wounds. We read the script by Anthony Peckham, and while it contained some beautiful moments, it also makes some very pedestrian choices and sort of turns into your standard, rousing sports picture by the end. We also wonder how smoothly the blend of rugby and Apartheid politics will play out on screen, but we’ll have to wait until we at least see a trailer (which should be any day now) before we can start making any assessments. Then again, we never expected to like “Gran Torino” as much as we did so we’re going to give Eastwood the benefit of the doubt here.
“Invictus” opens on December 11th.