It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. –William Ernest Henley, "Invictus"

When I was young, sports served me well as a metaphor for life. I suppose that's why sports films can be so powerful. They may seem to be about a game, but they are really about much more.

Clint Eastwood's new film, Invictus, could be called a sports film in that it is about the South African national rugby team, the Springboks, and their quest to win the rugby World Cup. The story takes place not long after Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa. Mandela knows that the country is extremely divided along racial lines. Whites fear the new government in the hands of the Black majority. Blacks want revenge for the suffering and pain forced upon them by Apartheid. Mandela understood that for the country to thrive, there must be a coming together. Even those close to him haven't grasped this concept. When Mandela integrates his body guard group, the leader of the group, Jason Tshabalala complains, but Mandela tells him, "The Rainbow Nation starts here. Reconciliation starts here. Forgiveness starts here."

Rugby was the sport favored by White South Africans. (Blacks played soccer.) Because the Whites rooted for the Springboks, all the Blacks cheered for whoever they were playing. (Sort of like the way I root for anyone who plays the Dallas Cowboys.) Mandela sought to use the World Cup as a way to bring all South Africans together in support of the Springboks. He recruits Springbok captain Francois Pienaar for support among the players, all but one of whom is white. The players are as resistant as anyone else.

When Mandela first met with Pienaar, they discussed leadership. Both men believed in leading by example, but Mandela pushed Pienaar for more. "We must all exceed our own expectations." As the team trained and played, slowly the whole nation began to coalesce around this underdog team. It isn't just the team that must exceed expectations. It is the nation, so bitterly divided, that must show the world a new way of people living together.

Eastwood's stock in trade is conflicted characters, going back to his early films as an actor in the Leone spaghetti Westerns and the Dirty Harry franchise. His best films as a director have all been about conflicted characters: High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider, The Outlaw Josie Wales, on down through Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and his companion Iwo Jima films. Most films deal with the internal conflict of their characters. Eastwood does a particularly good job of letting us feel those conflicts and the consequences of the choices that have to be made.

In Invictus, the conflicted character is the entire nation of South Africa. In a scene at an early Springbok game, the stands are filled with South African flags, mostly the old Apartheid-era flags, but also some of the new flags. This is obviously a nation divided. We see the conflict in individuals as well—his security detail, the players, even Pienaar's and Mandela's families. When Mandela's daughter remarks that Pienaar looks just like the police who forced them out of their home while Mandela was in jail, he tells her, "You think only to address your own personal feelings." That was what the entire nation was facing.

"Invictus" was a poem that Mandela would recite to himself in his darkest days in the Robben Island Prison. He shared that poem with Pienaar. The idea of being the master of one's fate, and captain of one's soul, was a powerful concept for Mandela through his years of imprisonment. It fits well with a team that is facing a trial. It can be a light to a nation that must overcome its internal struggles to find its way to peace.

South Africa went on to become a model for overcoming much of the hatreds and fear of its past, especially through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, lead by Bishop Desmond Tutu. But a small bit of the foundation for reconciliation was based on the nation finding something to hold in common. That something turned out to be a rugby team.

A good sports movie is not just action filled—it must also reflect the values that sports can add to society and model the way life should be lived. Invictus joins the ranks of worthy sports films because it gives a whole new understanding of what it means to be a team—not just a few players on the field, but perhaps an entire nation.