Finally, a cat video, I can be proud of…
Kool Kats
If you need some graph paper... you already know why you're here. incompetech has the best graph paper generators available, and they're all easy to use!
If you need free music for your YouTube videos where you get to keep the ad revenue...
If you need music for your film or video game...
If you need music for your presentation or commercial...
I went into this movie knowing almost nothing about rugby. I left this movie still knowing almost nothing about rugby, but that’s okay, since several of the characters don’t know much about rugby, either. Apparently, the game requires dressing in a soccer uniform, going out onto a reasonable facsimile of a North American football field, and acting like you’re involved in a horrible, no holds barred brawl. There must be rules, because occasionally the referee calls a foul, but I’m still not sure how the referees could tell when a fight started. The fighting looked exactly like the playing. To paraphrase an old hockey joke, I went to the fights and a rugby match broke out.
But it’s also a movie about politics, and I know even less about them, though the movie does a good job setting the scene. In the early to mid-90’s, when this movie takes place, Nelson Mandela (here played by Morgan Freeman of The Bucket List, who does an excellent job of looking like the former president) was trying to unite South Africa after it had been torn apart by Apartheid. The Afrikaners, descendents of the northern Europeans who settled in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries, call Mandela and his followers terrorists. The black Africans, only newly restored to citizenship in their own country, call the Afrikaners oppressors — and probably worse, though in the movie, they say it in something other than English, and no subtitles are provided, so I can’t be sure.
After 27 years in a tiny little cell with a blanket on the floor for a bed, Mandela is now elected president of a country that he freely admits is in a terrible state. Ostracized by other nations, with two-thirds of the population glaring angrily at the remaining third and possibly wishing they could still shoot at each other like in the good old days, Mandela has his work cut out for him. No one wants to forgive or forget, and when he urges people to do so, they usually look at him like they’re wondering exactly how the impeachment process works in South Africa.
Then he hits on an idea. It’s offbeat, risky, and makes his long-suffering personal assistant Brenda (Adjoa Andoh, who played Francine Jones, Martha Jones’ mother, in the new Doctor Who series) wish that sports had never been invented. Yes, he decides to use rubgy, of all things, to unite his shattered country. It still seems strange to me, to use a sport that advocates grievous bodily harm as a path towards peace, but then, I suppose in this case, it was advocating grievous bodliy harm against people from other countries, so maybe that’s okay, then. Sort of.
![]() |
Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon discover they’ve worn the same outfit to the World Cup Match. |
Anyway, reasoning that if he can make everyone cheer for the country’s rugby team, the Springboks (named after a type of South African antelope), then everyone will be much less likely to want to shoot each other. It does seem a little far-fetched, so I understand why Brenda gets so frustrated over her boss’ obsession with the team; but having been born and raised within twenty miles of Lambeau Field, the very heart of Green Bay Packers territory, I can see that Mandela has a valid point. You might not like the guy sitting next to you — you might never speak to this person in the normal course of events — but if you suddenly realize that this person next to you is also cheering himself hoarse over that great play, it’s really hard to dislike that person.
There are just a few little problems with this plan. First, the team isn’t very good. In fact, they’re actually kind of awful. Second, most blacks hate the sight of the (all-white, except for one guy) team, seeing them, their green and gold uniforms, and even their name as symbols of oppression.
Enter Matt Damon, of the The Bourne Ultimatum. (Finally, right?) He plays Francois Pinaar, captain of the team, and he seems to think the team has potential; they’re just not organized, angry, or maybe experienced enough. Or something. He tries to inspire them by making toasts and encouraging the throwing of beer cans, but something’s still not clicking.
Then he gets invited to tea with the president, who tells the hapless rugby player that he’d really like it if he and his team could go win the World Cup for South Africa, please, thanks. And that’s what the rest of the movie is about.
There’s the obligatory dramatic highlights of the World Cup games, of course, and by the end of the film, I was really, really tired of watching these men beat each other up. But then, I don’t like rugby. I don’t even like football much, and that’s practically sacreligious when you’re from where I’m from. Anyway, it really started dragging for me at the end, so be warned.
Basically, since any attempt to deal with the whole of the country at that time would take at least ten movies, Clint Eastwood (now apparently happy to direct instead of act for a while) wisely decides to focus on just the rugby aspect of the struggles so it isn’t too overwhelming. Even so, it’s 134 minutes long, so get a comfy seat. But it’s worth watching even if you’re not a rugby fan, and I’m not just saying that because Matt Damon’s in it. Promise.
Four idols for this one. It’s a little obvious sometimes, clearly working to make the audience weepy, and that didn’t quite feel right. And I’m pretty sure Kyle Eastwood wouldn’t be getting all these music jobs in Hollywood if his dad wasn’t hiring him — it’s okay music, but it should be fantastic. But otherwise it’s a good film. The minor characters all get their chance to shine — keep an eye on the president’s security detail, for instance, now suddenly an integrated security detail, and all the adjustments they have to make. And remember: the first rule of rubgy is to wait until the ref isn’t looking before you punch the other guy.
Shores of Avalon
Hypnothis
Harlequin
This post is pending a better description.
kevin@incompetech.com
Alchemist’s Tower – Orchestral theme for something both dark and fun.
MTA – A rare aggressive mix from me.
The search engine for keywords is still a little wonky… be working on fixing that soon!
It’s the newest trend, and you’re reading about it here first! Or maybe second, or twelfth. Or maybe my guess is completely wrong. But the simple fact is, somewhere, right now, someone is editing out the three swear words from this flick and preparing it to show on network television; because it already is a network TV movie. True, it has a bigger budget then usual for one of those, but in all practical terms, I just paid $10.50 in US dollars for the privilege of watching a TV movie on a really big screen. Okay, really only $7.00, but I needed those Milk Duds.
But just think of it. Take a budget that’s probably really small in Hollywood terms; get yourself a few B through D list stars; a script that’s got moderate violence, a car chase or two, and a couple of explosions; keep the swearing to a bare minimum, and you basically get two movies for the price of one. No muss, no fuss — this baby can go straight to any network you choose. And it’s only 88 minutes. Add 32 minutes of commercials and that voice-over guy warning us that it contains mature themes after every commercial break, and voila! Programming for a Friday night sometime next year.
Oh, and it does have a plot. Matt Dillon is Mike Cochrone, a guard at an armored car company called Eagle Shield. His protege and godson, Ty Hackett (Columbus Short, from Quarantine), is just finishing his probation period there and being made a full-fledged guard himself. But in spite of having this job (which is probably pretty high-paying, I would think, just for the potential danger factor), he has money problems. His parents recently died, and he inherited a house with two mortgages, a lot of medical bills, and a vaguely troubled younger brother who’s way too fond of spray paint. But old buddy Mike is there for him, always pointing out that Ty deserves better, and that they’ll “figure out a way” to save his house.
![]() |
The cast of the new Friday night drama about the trials and tribulations of a misfit bunch of armored car guards. |
This vague, unspecified “way” soon turns into a scheme that has clearly been in the works for a long time — a plan to fake a hijack, hide the $42 million dollars they’ll be carrying, and when the heat dies down, split the money six ways. But the six ways includes Ty, and he hasn’t yet agreed to go along with the scheme. He’s seen fighting in the Middle East, and already feels guilty enough about the people he’s killed there. He doesn’t need any more stuff on his conscience. But money worries are the worst, and he has Mike’s solemn promise that no one will get hurt, so you can understand the temptation.
However, anyone who’s ever seen a movie knows that a solemn promise that no one will get hurt ranks right up there with saying that nothing can possibly go wrong. Pretty soon the body count is rising and two armored cars will never be the same again. Mike and the other would-be thieves — Dobbs (Skeet Ulrich), Palmer (Amaury Nolasco, Max Payne, unfortunately), Quinn (Jean Reno, a character actor from Morocco whose name you might not know, but whose face is probably familiar), and Baines (Laurence Fishburne, no longer the heroic Morpheus, now reduced to telling slightly off-color jokes) — claimed to have a foolproof plan, but it unravels faster than you can say “Whoops.”
Complications include sheriff’s deputy Jake Eckehart (Milo Ventimiglia, in phase three of his ongoing plan not to be typecast as anything, playing a very good cop to make up for playing that complete pervert in Gamer) and the traditional Place Where Radio Communications Will Not Work, no matter how reliable they were before. And yes, people die. But nothing truly horrible happens, since it’s only PG-13. It’s an action movie for the whole family! Except it isn’t, because the kids would probably get bored, when they’re not freaking out. There are times when they go for a while between explosions or other dramatic bits of violence.
I’m going with two and three-quarter idols. It would’ve been three, but I had to dock a quarter idol for the ending, which was even more ridiculously pat than I was expecting. On the plus side, at least they didn’t try to wedge a romance into the film.
Here’s a little preview of some music that I’ll be posting soon… but in book trailer form. :-)
Here’s the book!