Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006)

[Antoine Doinel]

Trailer has arrived

Jesus, how overwrought and bluntly obvious can you get... in case you didn't know, the African diamond trade isn't entirely legitimate. This trailer makes Kanye West's "Diamonds Are Forever" seem subtle.

[Cinesimilitude]

I don't know, looks kinda good. DiCaprio is top notch in almost everything he does, so I'd see it on that merit alone. and although this film looks very loud, the quiet parts of Zwick's Last Samurai were excellent. I'm interested to see his work sans-cruise.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

I don't know, looks kinda good. DiCaprio is top notch in almost everything he does, so I'd see it on that merit alone.

I dunno. I'm not crazy about DiCaprio's accent in this one. It sounds kinda fake and forced.

[flyonthewall2983]

Looks like a good modern Action/Adventure story. I was very impressed with the care Zwick used on Last Samurai, in terms of both the action and the story. It will be interesting to see him use that similar approach in a modern story.

[obloquy]

This movie looks so stupid.

[John Cope]

A smart, thoughtful review from David Edelstein in New York:

[quote]It will be fun to see which stars are willful and/or clueless enough to wear diamonds to this year's Academy Awards if the political action melodrama Blood Diamond—about the carnage surrounding the mining of the gemstones in Sierra Leone—racks up a lot of nominations. Forgive me for opening on such a superficial note, but the truest measure of the worth of the movie—which is both excitingly well made and dispiritingly formulaic—will be in what trickles down: whether strong box office plus Leonardo DiCaprio's earnest proclamations on Oprah plus the opportunistic shame of Hollywood goddesses can disrupt Tad and Suzy's engagement-ring expedition and Dad's anniversary surprise for Mom. “People back home wouldn't buy a diamond if they knew it cost someone a hand,â€

[Commander Shears]

You almost have to admire a guy whose lifelong ambition is to be the poor man's Stanley Kramer. There is no all-caps IMPORTANT subject Zwick cannot dumb down to ironic goofiness.

[Matt]

This movie made me feel like shit as I sat there, it showing me a very good simulation of little kids with AKs gleefully shooting other little kids and women and then expecting me to shed a tear over DiCaprio's and Connelly's star-crossed lovers. If the filmmakers had had the guts to make the film from the POV of Djimon Honsou's character, it might have been very good. But every film about Africa needs to have a white audience surrogate, apparently, so his character is reduced to a device to keep the plot moving. That he manages to register as anything resembling a human being is testament to Honsou's talent.

[Polybius]

I will happily stick up for Zwick's earlier films, (enthusiastically for Glory and with caveats for Courage, Legends and The Siege), but The Last Samurai was wretched and it's starting to look like he might suffer the same creative derailing that seems to affect so many otherwise talented people after they get some of Cruise's Karma rubbed off onto them.

Am I the only person here who has no use for DiCaprio? Maybe I'm being Sizeist, but I can't really buy someone like him, especially with that squeaky voice he has, as any sort of leading character (this is all outside his obvious emotional and aesthetic limitations as an actor.)

[HerrSchreck]

Am I the only person here who has no use for DiCaprio?

No. Only a boy man can look up to another boy man as a "hero".

[brownbunny]

i think decaprio's accent is one step below van dyke's cockney.

[Polybius]

A rather snarky review that echoes many of Matt's points.

I would add that I'm happy to, for once, see Vosloo playing a white African, which is what he actually is.

[Commander Shears]

I know the thread has been dormant for a while, but I finally saw this thing. I love how Zwick always chooses to stick with the white characters when the stories diverge. Nobody finds a great story and then turns his camera away in order to show the white guy standing nearby quite like Ed Zwick.

He makes a movie about civil war, genocide, slavery, smuggling, refugee camps, western apathy, etc., and still finds time for the beautiful white woman to talk about her past 'boyfriends' and give the beautiful white guy her phone number?! So they can, like, hook up, like, after gym class, I guess. Is Mel Brooks the only one who realizes the comedy inherent in the word 'boyfriend'? I wasn't expecting intelligence, but that made me laugh out loud...

Am I the only person here who has no use for DiCaprio?

No. Only a boy man can look up to another boy man as a "hero".

...though not as much as watching Leonardo try to physically intimidate Djimon Hounsou. The same Djimon who at one point in the film goes on a homicidal rampage with a shovel that probably made the camera operator wet himself. Priceless. You know you're in trouble when Arnold 'The Mummy' Vosloo is far from the most miscast actor.

[domino harvey]

More effective social commentary on the diamond-harvesting trade in two and a half minutes than this movie manages in two and a half hours