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Blood Diamond film review
BLOOD DIAMOND
Running time: 143 mins
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Michael Sheen, Arnold Vosloo
It's been quite a year for Leonardo DiCaprio. He's followed his coming of age performance in Scorsese's The Departed with another equally powerful portrayal in this absorbing, purposeful thriller. DiCaprio has matured into an actor of real substance, with the chops to pull off challenging and weighty roles. The youthful fragility has gone, replaced with a forceful presence. His accomplished performance is matched by those of Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly, who combine to make Blood Diamond successful as both a personal and political story.
Directed with real verve by Edward Zwick from Charles Leavitt's script, Blood Diamond is set in war torn Sierra Leone in 1999. Civil unrest in the African country involves the Revolutionary United Front rebels who embark on a reign of terror in an attempt to challenge the government. Inextricably tied into the fight is the country's rich diamond deposits. Blood Diamond refers to the name given to a diamond of a certain colour, it also refers to the incalculable amount of blood shed as a result of Sierra Leone's diamond industry. Diamonds mined from countries at war are labeled conflict diamonds in the industry. If the message wasn't already writ loud and clear by the film's strong indictment of the corrupt and unscrupulous diamond industry, the prologue implores audiences to refrain from buying conflict diamonds.
The story used to expose this global practice involves a one-time mercenary turned diamond smuggler Danny Archer (DiCaprio) and a Mende fisherman Soloman Vandy (Hounsou). When RUF rebels attack Vandy's village, his wife and three young children escape. Vandy is captured and set to work mining diamonds which are smuggled to Liberia and sold to buy arms for the RUF. Vandy unearths a large pink diamond and buries it for retrieval later. When Archer gets word of Vandy's discovery he offers to reunite Vandy with his family in return for a share of the diamond he sees as his "ticket out of this godforsaken continent.". The pair is joined on their quest by Maddy Bowen (Connelly), an American journalist in Sierra Leone to write a story about conflict diamonds. "In America it's bling bling. Out here it's bling bang," Archer warns her.
The violent scenes of the rebels attacking villages and government troops are chillingly graphic. That Archer and Vandy are continually able to cheat death by miraculously running through a hail of bullets while all around aren't so lucky is a ploy generally used in more far-fetched material, which is why it grates here. Indeed at times Zwick is guilty of going too far with both sentiment and emphasizing the film's message; a concession to his more commercial sensibilities.
One of Blood Diamond's best elements is the underplayed relationship between Archer and Bowen. The scenes between DiCaprio and Connelly bristle with sexual electricity. It's only at the very end things get a little schmaltzy, but given the film's many assets, it's certainly forgivable.
Kevin Murphy
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