Theatrical Review of Blood Diamond

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At their very best, movies serve a dual purpose: to entertain and to educate. History is littered with such films, whether they educate about prejudice (as in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"), environmental crises ("An Inconvenient Truth"), history ("Spartacus") or current conflicts, as in "Blood Diamond".

A blood diamond, also known as a conflict or war diamond) is a jewel that is sold out of a war zone in order to finance insurgents. In the case of this film, the diamonds financed a rebel group in Sierra Leone, circa 1999. Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a smuggler, getting blood diamonds out of Sierra Leone and into neighboring Liberia, where the export of the stone is legal. When he gets arrested, he ends up in jail and hears the rantings of a rebel leader, who claims a fellow prisoner has found a wondrous jewel. This man, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), was separated from his family when the rebels invaded their village. He doesn't know that his eldest son has been taken in and trained by the insurgents. These two unlikely "allies" eventually meet up with American reporter Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly). They each have their own reasons for wanting to find Vandy's diamond-money, family, career-and they all know what it represents: more bloodshed.

"Blood Diamond" succeeds where most other films fail. It delivers more than enough violence through it's two plus hour running time, but it never feels gratuitous or out of place. Diamond companies caused an uproar not too long ago, claiming that director Edward Zwick should include a tag to the film which indicated these events are fictional and take place in the past. Besides the fact the history of this conflict is evident throughout the film (mention of Monica Lewinsky and, at the outset, a subtitle indicating the year is 1999), does it really matter when the backdrop for the story is? The undeniable, relentless fact of the matter is these events did happen a scant few years ago. People were being brutally murdered for land some hoped contained diamonds. Families were being ripped apart, a country was in a state of civil war. Matter of fact, this exact same scenario is still going on in the world, most notably in the Ivory Coast and possibly with al-Qaeda.

The idea behind the violence on the screen is to show the brutality and senselessness of violence, both in Africa and around the world. Seeing children pick up weapons and cut down a fellow human being without batting an eye is almost too much to take, especially on the big movie screen. Even having grown men attack unarmed villagers, chopping off their hands, shooting them in the head and bludgeoning them to death with shovels gives off an uneasy feeling. There's a fine line between graphic violence used for shocks (such as that in the "Saw" series) and graphic violence used to make a point. The point here is as crystal clear as the diamonds themselves: the American public is content with soundbites and pleas for help on infomercials, yet they continue to do nothing of any relevance to stop this warfare throughout the world. It's a point Bowen makes quite convincingly roughly halfway through the film. She wants the big story, the one that will take every person associated with blood diamonds down so she can cover something else. The cynic might say she is hungry for the story in order to further her career, yet there's no evidence of that. She genuinely seems like a good person, hoping to cast light on a terrible event in the world which will get someone's attention even though, as she says, CNN will stick it between sports and the weather.

Vady, the person on which the entire movie hinges, is the one pure soul in the film. Yes, Bowen is a good person, but she's not above lying and snooping around to get what she needs. Even when he needs to tell a relatively innocent lie, Vady nearly stumbles over his words and is clearly unsettled by being anything less than honest, no matter the reason. In perhaps his highest profile role since 2000's "Gladiator", Hounsou is the reason to see "Blood Diamond". He makes himself the focus of every scene, whether through body language or by the pure ferocity in the character. It's a marvel that, in a film featuring one of the best "young" actors in Hollywood, Hounsou turns in a performance that overtakes DiCaprio in every scene the two share.

When the first trailers for "Blood Diamond" were released, there was talk DiCaprio's African accent sounded fake or wasn't up to snuff. The media's favorite whipping boy just a few years back has turned himself into a bona fide movie star by choosing projects which allowed him to stretch his talents. This year alone he's conquered two different dialects quite effectively: Bostonian and African. More than that, though, he's turned in another praiseworthy performance (the other being "The Departed"). What he does here is convince us he's embedded himself in this mercenary character as far as he can. It's tough to explain, but he never looks as though he's trying or really even stretching to be Danny. We completely buy this is DiCaprio's profession. When you do that kind of work, you should be rewarded.

Unfortunately, when sitting next to Hounsou, you're going to be overshadowed no matter what you do. Connelly's Bowen isn't involved in the film long enough for her acting to be outclassed. This essentially turns into a deadly serious buddy movie, striking me as very similar to 1958's "The Defiant Ones". One black, one white-both having to propel each other over their hurdles to the ultimate goal. For Solomon, the goal is reuniting his family for Danny, it's the blood diamond.

In most films, it's relatively easy for the audience to identify the "good guys" from the "bad guys". The bad ones twist their mustaches and snatch the voluptuous females the good ones try to stop them. This isn't "most films" and it won't stand to rely on those stereotypes. Even the good people, represented by Vady, aren't above getting their hands dirty. He physically attacks one of his former captors with a shovel, continually pounding the man into the ground until blood sprays onto him. It's a far cry from his previous reaction over having to lie. This is interestingly pointed out with two lines of dialogue: "Will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other?", to which the response is "God left this place a long time ago".

Ultimately, this is a message film, no doubt about it. Zwick wants to shine the light on a conflict many people don't know about. He does want to shame the public, America in particular, for not being as worldly and intelligent as they purport to be. He wants to take every single one of us down a peg. Know what? If it means we're a more knowledgeable people because of it, keep knocking us down. "Blood Diamond" uses good old-fashioned emotional blackmail to get its point across. It does it with such panache, you never get the feeling you're basically sitting in a lecture. Arguably, message films like this and "Catch a Fire" have a higher probability of teaching people than a news report or a print article. Current events camouflaged as entertainment? It's worked before and it continues to work here.

"Blood Diamond" will get pigeon-holed at awards time as a film because of what it does, but there's no doubt there will be at least one nomination coming its way (Best Supporting Actor, if you haven't figured that out already. On the scale of 1 to 10, "Blood Diamond" rates an 8.

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