Best Supporting Actor 2009: Matt Damon in Invictus

Matt Damon received his second acting Oscar nomination for portraying Francois Pienaar in Invictus.

Matt Damon portrays the captain of the South African Rugby team who President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) wants to win the World Cup in an attempt to unite the country together. Damon role here is actually a fairly limited one not in terms of screentime but in terms of what Pienaar does throughout the course of the film. Pienaar has no internal conflict and is devoted to his team winning from the very beginning, and than proceeds to agree with Mandela's ideas almost instantly. Pienaar has no personal conflict or struggle other than just to win the game.

I do not want to be too negative though as there is not anything wrong with Damon's performance either. He uses a South African accent and actually handles it quite well by not ever overdoing it or bringing too much attention to it. He keeps it simple but as it should be. Damon most certainly does have the determination required for his performance, and keeps a certain degree of passion in his performance that is always completely fitting of his character.

Damon though never really has any sort scenes that really allow him to much of anything but really small reactions. His reactions even are not given that much importance considering he can just be part of a crowd during a scene. There is nothing wrong with these reactions either, and are always certainly fitting to his character. In the end there are just only a few challenges in the role the accent, and showing the right passion Damon completely fulfills these challenges but the film never asks anything more from him.