CommentsXp Best movie ever!

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

kosmasp Or at least through the eyes of a white man. Even if you are not familiar with Mandelas story you will able to see where this is going. The story of the white man/guard might be spiked a bit and his wife does not have much to do (Diane Kruger) besides the obvious (caring for him, the safety of their family and being a faithful wife, sticking with her husband through it all).One thing is sure, you do need a really charismatic and good actor if you want to portray a man like Mandela. And Dennis H. is one who can deliver. Even if he may not be on everyones radar, he has proved (on TV, but still), that he does have the skills and the presence to do such a job. He is not revealed immediately in the movie, which is not just another (filmmaking) trick, but serves the story or better yet the relationship between the two main man. New movies will come out and they probably will tell a better story, but this is not a bad movie either (even if predictable all the way through).

sddavis63 Any movie that deals with Nelson Mandela is a movie worth watching in my opinion. He is perhaps the only person in the world I can think of to whom I would apply the adjective "great." He was a man who could have lived in bitterness and anger all his life, seeking revenge when he finally achieved power, but who instead chose to devote himself to democracy and peaceful reconciliation between blacks and whites in South Africa. This movie, which I saw under the title "The Color Of Freedom," is interesting because although it deals extensively with Mandela, doesn't actually look at events from his perspective. The story is actually told from the perspective of James Gregory (played convincingly by Joseph Fiennes) - who as a prison guard slowly advancing up the ranks - met Mandela (played by Dennis Haysbert) in 1968 and gradually developed a relationship of trust and respect with him.There's enough background information to give the viewer a taste of what South African life was like under apartheid, but the story isn't really about that. It's more a story of Mandela's impact on Gregory. At the start of the movie, Gregory came across as basically just another white South African, committed to apartheid and devoted to maintaining the white hold on "their" country. But slowly, as Gregory comes to know Mandela, he changes. Mandela's graciousness as well as his fierce devotion to his cause impacts Gregory, who suddenly begins to see Mandela not as a black terrorist out to kill whites but as a human being seeking basic dignity and equality.Fiennes performance was very strong. Haysbert had a tough challenge. It surely isn't easy playing a man who is literally a living legend. He did well with the part, but it was difficult to accept him as Mandela. The portrayal of the racism that was so deeply ingrained in South African society was at times almost painful to watch. I suppose the biggest weakness of the story is that it's been denied by many people - apparently including Mandela. He did develop a strong relationship with one of his white guards, but it wasn't Gregory, who seems to have taken some liberty in the account he shares in his book, from which the movie was made. He is unfortunately dead and unable to answer to those criticisms. Still, this is a moving story, and there is truth behind it apparently, and it clearly established the qualities that made Mandela the great man he is, who accomplished the great things he managed.

James Hitchcock Nelson Mandela plays an important part in "Goodbye Bafana", but it is not a biography of Mandela. (There is, potentially, a great film to be made on that subject). Rather, it is an example of history seen through the eyes of an ordinary man who unexpectedly finds himself playing a significant role. James Gregory is a white South African prison guard. He grew up on a remote farm where his only companions of his own age were African boys, and as a result he learnt to speak fluent Xhosa. (The "Bafana" of the title was a friend of Gregory's during his childhood). This ability has made him useful to his superiors. He is transferred to Robben Island, the government's high-security prison for black political prisoners, where he is put in charge of censoring the prisoners' mail and monitoring their conversations with visitors to ensure that they do not discuss forbidden (i.e. political) topics. The film follows Gregory's career and his political development from the sixties to the end of apartheid in the early nineties. At the beginning of the film, he is portrayed as an enthusiastic supporter of the apartheid regime who believes in the superiority of the white race and who accepts racial discrimination as part of the natural order of things. As time goes on, however, his views start to change, partly as a result of the violence he sees directed by the South African police and security forces against the black population, partly because he has come to admire Mandela and the other Black political leaders. Whereas he once despised them as Communist terrorists, he now sees them as men fighting to right the injustices which their people have suffered. This shift in his political outlook makes Gregory unpopular with other white South Africans, especially his colleagues who regard him as a "kaffir lover", and even leads to strains in his marriage. Gregory's wife Gloria is more conservative than him in her unthinking support for apartheid. Her main concerns, however, are not with politics, but rather with furthering her husband's career, and cannot understand why he is putting his prospects at risk with his political stance. There is little in the way of action in this film- we hear about the "liberation struggle", but for the most part we do not see it. It is rather a film of ideas, with the most important drama being the one taking place inside Gregory's head. The problem is that Gregory's transformation from reactionary racist to enlightened liberal seems perhaps too predictable. There doubtless were white South Africans, including members of the prison service, who continued to hold unreconstructed white supremacist views up until the end of apartheid (and in some cases even beyond), but it is unlikely that a feature film would ever be made these days chronicling the life and opinions of such individuals, so we know from the outset that Gregory's views will undergo a complete change in the course of the film. Dennis Haysbert was very good in "Far from Heaven", but here as Mandela he seems less a living individual than an iconic symbol of dignity and nobility. The German actress Diane Kruger seemed miscast as Gloria. Although she seemed more at home with the English language than she did in "Troy", her accent often sounded more British than South African. (Joseph Fiennes's accent, by contrast, sounded very convincing to my non-South African ears). She also seemed too young in the latter part of the film, when Gloria is supposed to have aged nearly thirty years since the opening scenes. Despite these reservations, I enjoyed the film, mostly because of Fiennes's excellent performance as Gregory. He is a basically decent man trying to come to terms with the fact that the ideology to which he has committed himself is morally bankrupt and the political system which it supports is, in the long term, unsustainable. (Although the apartheid government had always stigmatised its opponents as "Communists", it is one of the ironies of history that in the eighties and early nineties the South African Nationalists and the Soviet Communists began to find themselves in similar positions. There must have been many basically decent Russians during the Gorbachev years who faced precisely the same dilemma as Gregory). The film's political stance may be a predictable one, and it may be telling a familiar story, but its message is one of hope and humanity. 7/10

a-i-carras The story offers great insight into the recent history of South Africa and the general attitudes of the time. This is great since it hasn't been as widely acknowledged as it should be. Personally, I thought more movies would have been made on this topic. Perhaps even one based on current attitudes and life in South Africa.The acting by many, if not all, the actors was appalling. Dennis Haysbert was OK considering there wasn't too much emotion needed for his part as the cool-headed and calm Nelson Mandela. However, everyone else just over-acted. Diane Kruger was not a good choice. And why hadn't the chief from Prettoria aged at all in the 20 years that the movie takes place in? The only reason I stayed until the end was for educational purposes only.