Mandela:the long Walk to Freedom Film movie Review, Johnson Thomas, Rating: * * * 1/2

English Film review

Johnson Thomas

Mandela: The long Walk to Freedom movie Review: A Compelling Bio-pic

Film: Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Cast: Idris Elba, Naomie Harris,tony Kgoroge,Riaad Moosa, Zolani Mkiva, Jamie Bartlett, Lindive marshikixa, Deon Lotz, Terry Pheto

Director: Justin Chadwick

Rating: *  *  *

Mandela: long Walk to Freedom Rating: *  *  * ½   Nelson Mandela's 1995 autobiographical account provides the basis for this compelling, though abbreviated , biopic adaptation about his political life, Worthy Pleasure for sure!

      

This adaptation of the autobiography skims through  his early life, education, 27 year imprisonment, release, presidency and rebuilding efforts post the civil war. William Nicholson’s abbreviated scripting gives us a glimpse of the great man but it doesn’t get much deeper into the mechanics of his thought-processes and struggle.

     

What comes across here is a Mandela given to mouthing slogans and a reduction of his ideas and their repercussions to moving montages. Nelson’s rocky relationship with his wife Winnie(Naomie Harris) is represented by bit sequences that are never fulfilling in it’s revelations. But Elba and harris strike great sparks off each other and make their togetherness and subsequent aloneness come to life.  Most of what we see in the film has come to us viz newsfeed over the years and so there is nothing new or revelatory about Mandiba’s struggle or journey to presidency. The make-up is terrific and makes Idris Elba(the actor essaying Mandela) grow progressively older and wiry over the expanse of 27 years of imprisonment.

 Encapsulating several decades of struggle into a two hour twenty minute long movie was always going to be a tough ask. And it comes as no surprise that the result though compelling, is a little less than we expected. A bio-pic about a modern Gandhi who lead his nation to freedom, asks for more in-depth resoluteness. Unfortunately, this Anant Singh produced film is lacking in that department-though in every other , including performances and cinematography, it comes out trumps!

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