A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.
Why do they keep doing it? Why do filmmakers continue to
make biopics of famous historical figures that don’t reveal anything that we
couldn’t learn from a documentary about the individual? Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom follows Nelson Mandela from the early
1940s when he was a young lawyer until the mid-90s when he was elected the
first black President of South Africa. Big deal! Mandela was a great man. He
did great things for his country and helped lead the movement – from prison! –
to end Apartheid. But what do we learn about him from Justin Chadwick’s
sprawling epic that covers fifty years of his life?
