Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013)

Release date: 2013-12-25
Country: UK|South Africa|France
Language: English|Afrikaans|Xhosa
Director: Justin Chadwick
Production Co: Videovision Entertainment, Distant Horizon, Film Afrika Worldwide
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Rating: 7.1/10
Length: 2h 21min

Storyline

Nelson Mandela is a South African lawyer who joins the African National Congress in the 1940s when the law under the Apartheid system's brutal tyranny proves useless for his people. Forced to abandon peaceful protest for armed resistance after the Sharpeville Massacre, Mandela pays the price when he and his comrades are sentenced to life imprisonment for treason while his wife, Winnie, is abused by the authorities herself. Over the decades in chains, Mandela's spirit is unbowed as his struggle goes on in and beyond his captivity to become an international cause. However, as Winnie's determination hardens over the years into a violent ruthlessness, Nelson's own stature rises until he becomes the renowned leader of his movement. That status would be put to the test as his release nears and a way must be found to win a peaceful victory that will leave his country, and all its peoples, unstained.

Plot Keywords

based on book, male underwear, forced to strip, man forced to strip, undressing, unfaithful wife, adultery, infidelity, 1970s, short shorts, release from prison, negotiation, prison cell, politician, husband wife relationship, 1990s, 1980s, based on true story, death of son, death of mother

Short Review

Not so much a drama as a kind of protracted educational video, the message driven home by a soupily emotional score and repeated flashbacks, sometimes in slo-mo, to Mandela's golden memories of the past, bathed in sunlight.