I’m sure a lot of people will be seeking out films about Mandela after his recent death and I’m here to tell you not to waste your time with this one.

‘GOODBYE BAFANA is the true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.’

No, it’s the alleged true story of James Gregory, but the most simple of googling will reveal that his close relationship with him portrayed in his book has been highly disputed, including by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Back to the film. Well, there’s little in it of note. It moves slowly, there are few surprises, the acting isn’t good enough to lead you to care a jot about any of the characters, and half the dialogue we see between Gregory and Mandela is in a Zulu dialect with no subtitles. Now really, how was that ever going to be a good idea? It doesn’t teach you enough about Mandela’s plight, it’s not in-depth enough to give a true feeling of what South Africa was like at the time, and it enters into politics on a very, very superficial and brief level. In a nutshell: you learn almost nothing.

I give it 4/10 for a decent performance by his wife and for relatively believable accents, along with what I suspect was a decent set: Robben Island was no glitzy holiday location.

I'd love to hear readers' views on films about or containing Mandela worthy of watching. Invictus was very moving, iirc.