Eastwood, Freeman and Damon

Clint Eastwood has been directing movies since the early 1970s, and since about 1990, he's turned out some really good ones. I've seen more than a dozen of the movies he directed, and I've lost count of the ones he starred in. I can't put him in the same class as Steven Spielberg, but I've decided any movie Eastwood directs is worth seeing.

I've written about Morgan Freeman before. He's one of those actors, like Gene Hackman, who can make any character interesting, and most of them likeable. If he's been in a movie that wasn't improved by his performance, I haven't seen it. His portrayal of God in Bruce Almighty  is one of my favorites, and is an example of him making a so-so movie much better than that. Like Robert Duvall, Freeman often plays the same character with subtle variations; I've started to lose interest in Duvall, but Morgan Freeman still keeps me glued to the screen.

I first saw Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. My wife loved that movie, but it lost me after ten minutes. I wasn't impressed with Damon initially, but he kept popping up in movies like Saving Private Ryan and gradually began to grow on me. Just as Clint Eastwood isn't quite in Spielberg's class, Matt Damon isn't quite in Morgan Freeman's class --- but he's getting there.

Today we saw Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. Freeman plays Nelson Mandela, and the movie dramatizes actual events involving Mandela's efforts to unify post-apartheid South Africa behind its national rugby team. Movies using sports as a backdrop are often from the heartwarming, feel-good genre. Clint's last movie with a sports background was Million Dollar Baby, which nobody would call a feel-good flick. Invictus resemblesThe Natural as far as being uplifting and capable of producing a lump in the throat. If I knew anything about rugby, I'd have liked Invictus even more, but it was worth the admission price at it was. Rated 8 and recommended.