Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom

Director Justin Chadwick’s Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom plays more like a docu-drama than a dramatic film, but, no matter how one wishes to term it, it still is a powerful story about one of the world’s great men.

Idris Elba gives a superb performance as Mandela and Naomie Harris is excellent as his wife Winnie.

Writer William Nicholson’s screenplay tries to pack too much into the 2 hour and 19 minute movie and that is the reason it loses its dramatic punch to historical recounting.  Exceptions are in the scene with Mandela and his daughter Zindzi, who visits him in prison, and in the last half hour of the film, after he is released from 27 years in captivity.

 

Still, as a history lesson so much needed in today’s world, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom rises above its faults.  It should be mandatory viewing for all members of our Congress and those of all countries around the world.   I give it a 4 out of 5.