Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 34 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 131 Ratings

  • Starring: Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman
  • Summary: Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match. (Warner Bros.) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 34
  2. Negative: 0 out of 34
  1. 100
    It’s an exciting sports movie, an inspiring tale of prejudice overcome and, above all, a fascinating study of political leadership.
  2. Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    80
    Damon, beefed up for the occasion, makes Pienaar a stalwart yet courtly figure. Freeman infuses Mandela's speeches with the same gentleness and gravity he's brought to his numerous God roles and the Visa Olympics commercials. But the real deity here is Eastwood, still chugging away handsomely in his 80th year.
  3. Instead of a thriller, war movie or western, the director has turned out a stirring drama about South African leader Nelson Mandela, blending entertainment, social message and history lesson.
  4. A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa.

See all 34 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 37 out of 59
  2. Negative: 11 out of 59
  1. RossW
    10
    Excellent movie. Well done!
  2. Un bel film, senza dubbio. Morgan Freeman e Matt Damon sono fantastici, specialmente il primo, che impersona Nelson Mandela come nessuno avrebbe saputo fare meglio. Leggermente noioso in alcuni frangenti. Expand
  3. An excellent movie, with excellent performances, both by Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. I liked this movie, and I don't even like rugby. A good sports movie. Expand
  4. NikkoC.
    1
    WOW!! Clint Eastwood's incomparable thirst for willful ignorance strikes again.... The real heroes of the 1995 world cup final were and always will be the All Blacks.... So much pressure (the only thing clint does get right) was indeed on mandela and the south africans that the heirachy of the SARFU and some government officials conspired to poison the all black rugby team. The food (at an 'event' organised for the team) was poisoned by a lady calling herself 'Suzie' - this is fact. To this day AB's coach Laurie Mains is haunted and bitter about it. Look at any footage of the game and you can see how ill the team was - jeff wilson visibly throwing up on the field as were others etc etc etc.... Lomu looked fine? He was..... he did not eat the dinner. But 12 of the team did. Yet somehow, courageously, the New Zealanders survived almost 100 minutes of rugby, away from home, in front of a crowd that only a decade earlier had not allowed Maori or people of colour to play for the all blacks in their country because they are hateful racists...and almost won it in extra time. Trust an american fool to see the story he would like to be true - and then make it as it suited him. When asked by a kiwi interviewer about this, clint interrupted and said, and I quote, "I have never even heard of this..... Iand suppose pigs are flying around the moon...".... What!!!??? He is not only a denier, but he had not even heard of it? That is appalling. It is general knowledge, unless you are, like a crooked cop, finding the evidence to suit the story you have in your head. I am genuinely disgusted. What else didn't happen Clint? The holocaust? Slavery? Hang your head old man. Expand

See all 59 User Reviews

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