Though it?s built around an artificial and earnest fictional scenario that makes your eyes roll at times, “Blood Diamond” is nevertheless an exciting thriller that also exposes an important social issue in palatable form.
Director Ed Zwick engineers the violent fights and lavishly filmed adventure of Sierra Leone?s 1999 civil war and gem-smuggling trade to generate maximum fascination. But as in the filmmaker?s previous over-the-top epics “Legends of the Fall” and “The Last Samurai,” grand production values and well-coordinated action scenes don?t always obscure the ruining distraction of rampant story contrivances and operatic overacting in places.
Luckily for Zwick, he?s cast one of the best actors of 2006 in the lead role. Following his similarly immersed characterization in “The Departed” earlier this fall, Leonardo DiCaprio saves the day in “Blood Diamond.” The previously boyish actor has never been more masterful or compelling as the main man in a movie than he is here as the cynical white African soldier of fortune and diamond smuggler Danny Archer.
Though he?s working from a sometimes-weak script by Charles Leavitt, DiCaprio makes Danny?s gradual transformation from materialistic survivor to caring idealist not only believable but also a worthwhile experience to witness. His hardened protagonist gets sucked into rediscovering his humanity after he finds out that a Sierra Leone village fisherman named Solomon Vandy, played by an intense and sympathetic Djimon Hounsou (“Gladiatior,” “In America”), has found a 100-plus-carat rough pink diamond worth millions. Solomon was snatched from his home by the country?s mass murdering rebel forces to work as a diamond-harvesting slave while his young son, Dia (Caruso Kuypers), was brainwashed into becoming one of their child soldiers and the rest of his family became one of tens of thousands of desperate refugees.
Danny wants to exploitSolomon in order to cash in on the precious stone and finally escape the atrocities and chaos that is modern Africa. But as the two men slowly bond on their quest to retrieve the hidden treasure, Danny can?t help but be moved by both Solomon?s plight and the larger tragic implications of the conflict.
?Blood Diamond?
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly
Director: Edward Zwick
Rated: R for strong violence and language
