Inside Invictus

Dave and I managed to duck out of the rain on Sunday and meet Matt and Jen at the Kips Bay movie theater to see Invictus.  Definitely not bad, but not the Best Picture Oscar winner I was hoping for.  Thoughts below:

• In typical Clint Eastwood fashion, this movie was looong.  They could have cut out a solid 45 minutes and nothing would have been lost.
• Not much happens.  You're going into this movie knowing that South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup and Nelson Mandela is not assassinated.  Sorry to ruin the ending.  Because there's no major action, they should have capitalized on the areas open for development, like Mandela's family life or the changing dynamic of the security detail (who were my favorite characters).
• Morgan Freeman did a great job; I was very impressed - he clearly did his homework.
• Though not central to the plot or quality of the film, there was one very good looking rugby player on the screen.  It probably doesn't matter, but this blogger found him to be great eye candy.
• Fun Fact #2: This former Abercrombie model mentioned above is actually the son of Clint Eastwood and his flight attendant mistress.  He can also be seen briefly in Eastwood's film Gran Torino (he was the white, quasi-thug, sorta-boyfriend of Sue, seen only for a moment before Eastwood's character shoos him away).
• Overall, it was an enjoyable film, but not as great as the last 3 Eastwood films I've seen.  Check it out, but maybe wait for it to pop up on Netflix.
• Fun Fact #2: Thanks to my Colombian-born boyfriend who only knows how to speak Latin, I know that the title of this movie is pronounced "inWictus".  Knew that studying a dead language would come in handy one day.