Blood Diamond (Studio) (Warner Bros) (2006) ***Year: 2006iMDB
Director: Edward Zwick Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Honsou, Jennifer Connelly
As Blood Diamond starts with gritty, brutal display of the violent reality that still exists in many African countries: women and children being massacred without reason by various factions that try to make a point that is usually forgotten by the time the gunshots quiet down. The story shows slick diamond smuggler Danny Archer (DiCaprio) catching the trail of a large diamond that Solomon (Honsou) has managed to hide in the dirt near the mine that he was forced to work in as a slave.
For a while the movie manages to thread the line between powerful drama, action adventure and romance, but semblance of balance is completely lost in an ending that simply bundles together one ridiculous cliche after another. The almost anti-hero Archer turns into a hero, and embraces a fate of sacrifice while melting the heart of the journalist that somehow fell for him in all the craziness. Oh, and of course, they manage in the end to sabotage the big bad diamond producers and prove that they were knowingly trading "conflict" diamonds... Sweet Happy Ending!.
Watch The Last King of Scotland instead.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on January 15, 2007 07:43 PM