When Will and I put together our list recently of fall's most anticipated films, a couple commenters wondered why we didn't include Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. My reason was simple: I wasn't sold on its director, Justin Chadwick. Turns out that my concerns were well-founded. This 144-minute biopic on Nelson Mandela is filled with serious purpose, but it doesn't have much of a personality, even though Idris Elba is quite fine in the title role -- and so is Naomie Harris as Winnie. My review is up at Screen International.
