Watch Goodbye Bafana For Free

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

"Goodbye Bafana" is a compelling film, which is worth watching. If you want to learn more about the past of South Africa and about Nelson Mandela, you should have a look at "Goodbye Bafana". This film was directed by Bille August and shows the everyday life of Mandela and Gregory, a prison guard, on Robben Island where Mandela was in arrest.The main character James Gregory is presented as a serious and irritable man but when he meets Nelson Mandela, he becomes a warm-hearted guy. In the beginning he is a supporter of Apartheid but when working with Nelson Mandela for a long time, he changes his opinion and begins to doubt his habits. In contrast to that, Nelson Mandela is a quiet and peaceful person. Furthermore, he is clever because he has a good legal education and is not fooled by anyone. The scene in which Mandela is released from prison is the best scene because it's a peaceful and happy moment in this film. Mandela's time-consuming and hard work paid off. In the end you can say that it is a great film about the story and life of Nelson Mandela and it's based on a true story.

Any movie that deals with Nelson Mandela is a movie worth watching in my opinion. He is perhaps the only person in the world I can think of to whom I would apply the adjective "great." He was a man who could have lived in bitterness and anger all his life, seeking revenge when he finally achieved power, but who instead chose to devote himself to democracy and peaceful reconciliation between blacks and whites in South Africa. This movie, which I saw under the title "The Color Of Freedom," is interesting because although it deals extensively with Mandela, doesn't actually look at events from his perspective. The story is actually told from the perspective of James Gregory (played convincingly by Joseph Fiennes) - who as a prison guard slowly advancing up the ranks - met Mandela (played by Dennis Haysbert) in 1968 and gradually developed a relationship of trust and respect with him.There's enough background information to give the viewer a taste of what South African life was like under apartheid, but the story isn't really about that. It's more a story of Mandela's impact on Gregory. At the start of the movie, Gregory came across as basically just another white South African, committed to apartheid and devoted to maintaining the white hold on "their" country. But slowly, as Gregory comes to know Mandela, he changes. Mandela's graciousness as well as his fierce devotion to his cause impacts Gregory, who suddenly begins to see Mandela not as a black terrorist out to kill whites but as a human being seeking basic dignity and equality.Fiennes performance was very strong. Haysbert had a tough challenge. It surely isn't easy playing a man who is literally a living legend. He did well with the part, but it was difficult to accept him as Mandela. The portrayal of the racism that was so deeply ingrained in South African society was at times almost painful to watch. I suppose the biggest weakness of the story is that it's been denied by many people - apparently including Mandela. He did develop a strong relationship with one of his white guards, but it wasn't Gregory, who seems to have taken some liberty in the account he shares in his book, from which the movie was made. He is unfortunately dead and unable to answer to those criticisms. Still, this is a moving story, and there is truth behind it apparently, and it clearly established the qualities that made Mandela the great man he is, who accomplished the great things he managed.

This is a workmanlike, routine study of James Gregory, (Joseph Fiennes) the prison guard assigned to Nelson Mandela on Robben Island and his burgeoning relationship with the ANC leader, seen then as a trouble- making terrorist.The title comes from the young black boy that Gregory played with and whose bond was underpinned by an exchange of a bracelet. This long and faintly boring film never really sparkles or initiates, nor engages. Fiennes, however, is believable as the racist Afrikaner who, along with his materialistic wife gets a posting to Robben Island. She wants him promoted, he soon sees his job as a challenge and find that he mellows toward Mandela and then tries to help him. Diane Kruger, as Gregory's wife is even more racist than he is and she often tries to shape her husband's career into what she sees as traditional white superiority.Unfortunately, Dennis Haysbert, who plays Mandela, neither looks the part nor radiates the personality that he's now renowned for. True, much of the story though does involve him being under the strict conditions where communication is difficult. The film then progresses onto Mandela's transfer to Pollsmoor Prison, then to Victor Verser prison and then onto freedom. What is undoubted is that this story will be remade. With a bigger budget, better script and a more carefully chosen cast. Robben Island, seemingly located within sight of Table Top Mountain is akin to Alcatraz and we well know how Hollywood has eked screenplays out of that. As a film lover rather than a apartheid historian, but a respecter of Mandela I look forward to that and would suggest that the majority do the same.

I'd just like to make the point that Raj Doctor of Amsterdam's comment above is more than a little misleading, as well as giving a rather simplified version of the long and complex history of what became the Republic of South Africa.He refers to 'the ruling British', a group apparently wholly responsible for the racism and violence which have beset the country. South Africa achieved sovereignty in 1934, and became a republic in 1961. The government of the country was dominated until 1994 by the Afrikaner community (a majority amongst white South Africans) who, as most people would presumably know, were certainly not of 'British' origin. One might expect someone from the Netherlands to know that they are comprised chiefly of Dutch settlers...Britain may be the former colonial power in SA, but was not the initiator of the post-war apartheid policy, still less the force which actually brought it about. Britain gave up its African colonies in the 1960s, so has not "ruled" anywhere on the continent in a direct sense since then, and has not ruled SA since considerably earlier than that. The particular nature of the problems which South Africa has faced are based primarily on the relatively significant size of its white population and their attendant rule (dominated as it has been by Afrikaners) not on 'British rule'.I enjoyed the film, by the way. A thoughtful and satisfying treatment of the subject on the whole, I thought.