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BLOOD DIAMOND (2006) (***1/2)

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Director Edward Zwick, who has made his career up of smart action films, makes his most socially conscience film to date. This film takes a scathing look at the diamond industry at the end of the 20th Century. Blood diamonds or conflict diamonds are being smuggled out of civil war torn places like Sierra Leone to fund the bloody slaughter of people within Africa.

The film begins with Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou, IN AMERICA) walking his son Dia (Kagiso Kuypers, film debut) to school when RUF rebels raid their village gunning down anyone in sight. Solomon is able to get his family to safety, but he is captured in the process and sent to a mining camp to dig for diamonds. While there, he finds a huge pink stone well over 100 carats and makes the very dangerous decision to pocket the jewel. In jail, smuggler Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio, THE DEPARTED) learns of Solomon's pink diamond from the murderous rebel leader Capt. Poison (David Harewood, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE), who vows to find the diamond himself.

With a debt owed to solider of fortune Col. Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo, THE MUMMY), Archer promises to help Solomon find his family in exchange for half the selling price of the diamond. The duo finds a great deal of help from journalist Maddy Brown (Jennifer Connelly, A BEAUTIFUL MIND). However, the situation gets worse when rebels kidnap Dia and indoctrinate him in the their savage ways.

The first section introduces us to both Solomon and Archer, who serves as the character with the emotional change. The screenplay by Charles Leavitt (K-PAX) sets up powerful character-based drama that skillfully weaves in its political points. Making Dia drafted into the service of the rebels provides a strong emotional pull when dealing with the exploitation of children issue, which is so often associated with the strife going on in Africa.

Out of the two main characters Archer is the most complex. He is a white African who has known nothing outside of war his whole life. To some extent his life mirrors Dia's experiences. Out for himself, Archer is a cunning and cold-blooded killer, yet he has a soft spot for his native Africa. He's a cynic who has only known one way of living. Solomon is the exact opposite. He doesn't have an emotional change, but he is the film's emotional core. His search for his family is heartbreaking.

These well-crafted characters are brought to life by DiCaprio and Hounsou with great power and authenticity. Though not much different than his work with Scorsese in GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE DEPARTED, DiCaprio shows his ability to play against his good looks with raw intensity. When it comes to raw emotional power, Hounsou is a natural force. From his first performance in AMISTAD to his Oscar nominated work in IN AMERICA to this film, he has an enormous amount of screen presence, which is used to a great emotional degree in this film. He makes us care about his character, so we become emotionally vested in the story.

The only weak link in the otherwise solid script is the romance between Archer and Brown. I never once bought their connection. In a good move, Zwick underplays the romance, which helps reduce the problems, making it more of a hinted at romance that might happen if Archer and Brown met in a different place at a different time. Connelly makes the most of the role, which isn't original, but is at least fleshed out. Though she is really just a plot device, she never feels like one.

As for the action sequences, they have a good visceral quality and are paced well. The film's overall pacing is good, only faltering toward the end when it drags out its emotional conclusions for too long. These few quibbles in no way ruin the film. It still stands a powerful condemnation of the bloodshed in Africa and the companies that profit off of it. It is one of the better films I've seen this year. I highly recommend it.

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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks