in 1995, South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup and found itself an unlikely candidate for "inspirational story of the year" given its own team's lack of success.

But that leaves out one crucial ingredient to the movie: the moving, unstoppable power of Nelson Mandela's spirit.

When Mandela became President of South Africa in 1994, he set out to unite a nation divided by color. His involvement in decision-making related to the nation's rugby team, the Springboks, showed his own tendency to believe that sometimes the lives of others can serve as an inspiration, and his steadfast spirit convinced the team's captain, Francois Pienaar, to believe as well.

The film version, which is a dramatization of John Carlin's Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, is immensely more emotive and thrilling...