feakes Mandela long walk to freedom,Shows there is more to the story then we even knew. Having grown up during the Free Mandela movement. I asked my parents who he was a terrorist I was told. A man causing trouble in South Africa . Having grown up in Canada. I knew next to nothing about the troubles in south Africa . Around 1985 the song sun city came out and with it a word was added to my vocabulary. Apartheid. When I asked I was told a hand full of white people having all the power over a Colored population in Africa that was millions of people. But the whites were killing them and making unjust laws Racist behavior taken to the extreme.. When Mandela was freed in 90 he was already a iconic figure. A man Worthy of the same level of respect as Martin Luther King Jr. Mandela made his country listen to him. He ushered in a era of peace and tried to bring the country together. And in many ways he succeeded. He brought the country closer together then it ever has been. When this movie was being made it got my interest. now after seeing it I can honestly say it got my respect too. It did not hold anything back and told the truth warts and all in Mandela's story. He never claimed to be a hero but he was. He helped bring a dream to life that needed to be brought to life. Idris Elbra is remarkable in playing Mandela as a man one step ahead of his captors. A remarkable movie I will see it again just to watch a amazing story unfold .

MR T R Barnes For years now we've wondered if Steven Seagal will ever again achieve the heights of Under Siege 2: Dark territory. Well put your pants back on because in 'Mandela: Long walk to Freedom', Seagal is back to his sofa-faced best. Synopsis: Steven Seagal plays Mandela, a ship's cook framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to jail by the south African rugby team. Mandela (Seagal) is furious about this – so furious in fact that he comes dangerously close to changing his facial expression. What they don't realise is that Mandela used to be a highly decorated Navy Seal. Mandela engages in an epic battle for the freedom of the nation, eventually forcing the incumbent head of state and South African Rugby captain President Botha into a show down in a multi story car park. Botha gives it the big bananas, but ultimately is no match for the flappy hands of the great Seagal – eventually succumbing to a Judo open handed neck jab behind the ear which sends the unfortunate racist plummeting through a glass ceiling into a spike factory. Boring? A little. But sometimes that's the price you pay for historical accuracy. 5 stars.

g-bodyl Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is a movie that portrayed Nelson Mandela, the strongest opponent of apartheid, in an honest light. It showed Mandela as a good man with good values who wanted nothing but racial equality for South Africa. It also showed him as a man who was never home for his family and a man who put his country before his family, even though he loved his family. All of this combined is a wonderful biopic, perhaps a bit conventional at times. But the movie plays the cards well and is emotional at times. Plus we also get a really good song from U2. Justin Chadwick's film is a biopic about Nelson Mandela starting from the 1940's as a lawyer who joined the ANC to promote equality to his 27- year prison sentence to when he became the first black president in the history of South Africa. Idris Elba was just fantastic as Mandela. He really got everything right about the portrayal down to the accent. It shows the impressive range of Elba. Not only he can play a Norse god, but he can play an important historical figure. Naomie Harris as Winnie Mandela was also very good and she gave a moving portrayal of the woman who suffered sixteen months in solitary confinement. Overall, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is a very good film, even if it plays it safe at times. But racism has always been a worldwide issue and America's own racial problems can be compared to South Africa's, although apartheid was much more violent and oppressive. But this is a really powerful film about a man who fought valiantly for his people. This is also an honest, awards-worthy portrayal. I rate this film 9/10.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) Let me start this review by saying that I'm a huge fan of Idris Elba's work in "Luther", so I was quite curious to which extent he could pursue his big movie career with the truly showy role of Nelson Mandela, which brought Morgan Freeman an Oscar nomination not too long ago. Well.. it did not for Elba, but after reading many criticism that he just doesn't look the part, I was actually pleasantly surprised when I finally got to watch the movie. The make-up was very fine and I also liked U2's Golden Globe winning song, even if I was glad Frozen's song got the Oscar afterward.The film is a nice biopic on Mandela from his early years up to his later years and summarizes efficiently in roughly 2.5 hours why he did what he did and how he became who he was. As this came out in the year of Mandela's death, it earns additional relevance. Here and there was a scene I was not too fond of, like the whole pants in prison focus. Obviously, it showed Mandela's early fight for equal rights, but it left me rather unattached. Director Justin Chadwick shows us his take on the South African legend here, a couple years after Eastwood in what could almost be described more of a sports movie. I enjoyed Chadwick's "Other Boleyn Girl", which received mostly bad reviews and he did not disappoint me here either. Naomie Harris worked with him before in "The First Grader" and this may not have been the last cooperation of the two. Still, I remember she received lots of early hype as a possible Academy Award favorite for her character here, but I (and also the awards world) felt she could not really fulfill the ambitions. Her character was truly militant and showed nice contrast to Elba's Mandela, but that's all there really was to her. Not the depth one had hoped for. If it's her fault or the script's fault, who knows.As much as I was entertained by the film, I also have to say that it did not bring the outstanding moments, the main character's biography had offered and that could stay in mind for a long time. Of course, the cell he was in for decades was a central point here as well just like in Eastwood's approach. In addition, it was also nice to find out a bit about the people Mandela was working with, especially the high-profile statesmen both black and white, in shaping South Africa the way it became today. I would like to close this review by saying, despite some criticisms I recommend watching this movie and by mentioning my favorite scene which was how delighted they were after the trial that they were not sentenced to death. Still, life in prison is not a bowl of cherries either, but all that mattered that very moment was that he would live and I really liked the way they managed to depict that scene to make it relevant.