Doubtless not the sort of project that fans of director Clint Eastwood want from him, a Big Statement, no matter how characteristically understated. Marrying elements of the Great Man biography and the inspirational true sports story, it tells of Nelson Mandela’s first years as the first black president of South Africa — timely parallel to somebody closer to home — and his outwardly frivolous, inwardly farsighted interest in his country’s hosting of the Rugby World Cup, 1995, as an opportunity to unify a divided populace. (An anti-revenge film, a reconciliation film, it could have been titled Forgiven to round out the course of contrition Eastwood undertook way back with Unforgiven.) The extensive speechmaking does not get in the way of the director’s serene craftsmanship, the slanted compositions solidly hinged together and unfolded at a steady and imperturbable pace, stretching out customarily to a wieldy and evenly balanced two and a quarter hours. Morgan Freeman as Mandela (put a batik shirt on his back and a smile on his face and it’s amazing how well he can pass) and Matt Damon as the rugby team captain, François Pienaar, struggle to outdo one another in stoical underplaying, and neither struggles noticeably with the accent. Eastwood, meantime, has his own struggle in making an unfamiliar sport comprehensible (“So, it is very important that we beat Australia”), and although he fails at that on the field of play, he succeeds stirringly in the stands and on the streets and in front of the nation’s televisions. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd