This ?Diamond? is forever

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.