Great review from Premiere! Thanks, lena.
Dir: Edward Zwick. US. 2006. 138mins. A well-written, well-acted and provocative political action thriller, Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond provokes its audience into thinking about the impact of diamond lust on the Third World. But its relentlessly realistic depiction of contemporary African warfare - and the way diamond smuggling funds it - is so horrific that it could be hard-pushed to be regarded as broad Friday night multiplex entertainment, despite featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. Zwick has crafted several classily produced big-star movies about conflict past and present, such as The Last Samurai (2003, $457m globally), although that starred Tom Cruise and valued visual opulence above strong narrative. For better commercial comparisons, look towards Zwick’s The Siege (1998, about domestic terrorism, $116m worldwide) and Courage Under Fire (1996, about the first Iraq War, $100 worldwide), as well as Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (2001, $173m worldwide), another contemporary African warfare movie. Blood Diamond could rival returns for Scott’s feature, especially given DiCaprio’s renewed profile following the recent The Departed. Broad upscale audiences may respond if the first major Hollywood production to address the diamond trade’s dirty side draws enough related news coverage. Certainly it will outpace lower-budget, less action-orientated features that have covered genocide in Africa, such as Hotel Rwanda (2004, which took $23.5m of its $33.6m worldwide gross from the US) and The Last King Of Scotland (2006), which are more character studies than adventure yarns. Rolling out in the US on Dec 8, Blood Diamond is released in major international markets – where films starring DiCaprio usually take the balance of their box-office – in January and early February. The film opens in Sierra Leone in 1999, during a brutal civil war in which thuggish rebels lop off the hands of children as a terror tactic. Roguish Danny Archer (DiCaprio) sneaks rebel-mined diamonds out of the country into Liberia, then on to a diamond company in London that stores them in a vault so as to control the market. Streetwise and world-weary, Archer knows the dangers of his trade all too well: in America diamonds mean bling bling, but in Africa they only cause bling bang. Captured in the Sierra Leonese capital Freetown and jailed, Archer overhears that fellow inmate Solomon Vandy (Hounsou) is hiding a huge, pinkish diamond he discovered while forced to work for the rebels. On release the two men form a reluctant alliance to locate the stone, Archer for its potential profit, Solomon in order to secure the release of his family from a refugee camp. Meanwhile, a muckraking journalist/photographer (Connelly) attaches herself to the pair and develops a relationship with Danny. Edward Zwick studied Sorious Samura's documentary Cry Freetown – about the conflict in Sierra Leone – before he began shooting Blood Diamond and the grim depiction of violence evidenced here is shatteringly, exhaustingly naturalistic. During the battle/slaughter scenes rockets are fired at low-level close-range targets with frightening results. The rebels, including their child soldiers, cruise around in vehicles like stoned-out zombies, fitted out with bizarre costumes, blaring radios and guns. In the past Hollywood has been accused of romanticising the Third World in its portrayals of life – but it is something that Zwick has studiously avoided here. Certainly Blood Diamond has more narrative complexity and character development than the likes of Black Hawk Down, especially in how it expresses its political ideas. Yet the violence occurs so frequently and reliably that it eventually starts to acquire a rhythmic intensity not dissimilar to Ridley Scott’s feature. Leonardo DiCaprio, in his second fine performance this year after The Departed, is all stubble and believable southern African accent. He carries Blood Diamond as a sly, treacherous, even furiously dangerous, amoral man who slowly grows a conscience. At the same time his character is fully formed enough to be calm, reflective, noble and flirtatiously charming when called for. Such charm is especially on display in his relationship with Jennifer Connelly, with who DiCaprio shows good chemistry, although her part is relatively one-dimensional in its definition. With his shaven head and deep-voiced gravity, Djimon Hounsou acquits himself well – he may be an outside shot for supporting actor awards consideration – but Charles Leavitt's otherwise-astute screenplay sometimes renders him too noble for his circumstances. Elsewhere Michael Sheen - Tony Blair in The Queen – has an amusing cameo as the London diamond rep. Photography – the film was mainly shot in Mozambique – is fast paced, as if the camera is darting around to avoid being blown up. Cinematographer Eduardo Serra contrasts the ramshackle, squalid crowdedness of urban areas with the beautiful vistas and horizons of the forested countryside, while a dusty refugee camp resembles a prison colony on the moon. The drama is underscored by James Newton Howard's inspiring and mournful score, which mixes orchestral music with African choral voicehttp://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=28792&r=true