Movie review: Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom a dutiful portrait (with video)

Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Starring: Idris Elba, Naomie Harris

Directed by: Justin Chadwick

Running time: 139 minutes

Parental guidance: Violence, sexual content, strong language

Nelson Mandela led a long, troubled, and ultimately glorious life. Its almost like a folk tale in its familiar beats: the fiery freedom-fighter, the courageous prisoner, the forgiving president.

Its all there in Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, a 139-minute trek that touches all the high and low points of his life but doesnt stray off the well-worn path. Mandela the man is presented pretty much as advertised wise and courageous, with a few flaws that are lightly worn and the story doesnt tell us anything new. Long Walk To Freedom is a good, solid, responsible, well-made movie biography, and you sit through it with a feeling of fulfilling a duty.

It stars Idris Elba, a powerful actor who towers over most of the other cast members (hes 6-foot-2 ) but evokes a gentle wisdom. Its a fine performance even though it never really gets under the skin of the character. Long Walk To Freedom has the odd problem of being simultaneously too long and too short: it marches through all of the historic high points of Mandelas life, but never lingers long enough to find something deeper in the man. Its stuffed with incident at the expense of insight, and when it does stop, its usually for a rousing speech about freedom that is typically underscored with the orchestral string section that is movie shorthand for glory.

It begins with Mandelas childhood and early success as a canny lawyer in a segregated South Africa. He has no political ambitions, and when members of the African National Congress try to recruit him they ask if he isnt tired of being addressed as boy he says, When I am better qualified and better dressed and richer than they are, they wont call my boy any more.

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Movie review: Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom a dutiful portrait (with video)