After all, this is one of the grimmest Hollywood movies about Africa in a field that contains The Constant Gardener, Tears of the Sun, Hotel Rwanda, The Interpreter and many others. Edward Zwick’s boom-boom-boom drama, set in conflict-wracked Sierra Leone in the 1990s, once again reminds us the continent has big problems.
Connelly, of course, has always been fun to look at and occasionally acts wonderfully (House of Sand and Fog, Requiem for a Dream). But as a reporter seeking a "scoop" on blood diamonds, her every slink and shimmy causes the corners of your mouth to turn up in an involuntary grin.
On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio, as hard-bitten mercenary and diamond smuggler Danny Archer, is quite convincing, despite the touch-and-go accent, which is more a testament to his maturing acting skill than to the greatness of the project. DiCaprio has become good enough to carry a so-so movie on his own pumped-up shoulders, which is a rarity in Hollywood these days. An Oscar nod looms, either for this or for The Departed.
Danny meets Maddy in a seaside outdoor bar in Sierra Leone, a place the hard journalist in the low-cut blouse clearly believes is the best source of information on blood diamonds, her current beat. The way she bats those eyelashes and smiles flirtatiously could teach all of you journalism grads out there a thing or two about "approaching" a story. In fact, she spends so many nights working the same seaside bar that my wife and I came to refer to it as "her office." Later, because she’s an ambitious journalist, she does the bump and grind with Danny on the bar’s dance floor. Lap dancing her way to a Pulitzer Prize, apparently.
But, as mentioned, her gloom-reducing presence is needed in a film that depicts young Sierra Leonean males machine-gunning villagers, evil revolutionaries slaughtering their own people in order to rule by fear, and other sundry approximations of hell on earth.
Djimon Hounsou is good (though typecast) as fisherman Solomon Vandy, whose family is separated by the murderous Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel army that buys its weapons with smuggled diamonds. Blasting their way to Freetown village by village, the rebels either hack off the limbs of young villagers to "send a message," or toss the hardier males into the diamond pits. The resulting stones are shipped out in exchange for arms, then laundered by foreign dealers to erase any trace of their origins. All so that Western brides can get a big gasp on the day the fiancé pops the question.
This is the big "conflict" framing the plot points of the movie, and it actually provides enough of a context to keep you interested in the struggles of a few little people against a seemingly hopeless situation. "T.I.A." is the recurring phrase of Danny and his former mercenary trainer, Col. Coetzee (Mummy dude Arnold Vosloo). It means "This is Africa." In other words: "Sh*t happens, then you die."
But those plot points are pretty well-trodden by now, and by much better films from the past. Blood Diamond has a way of conjuring up other cinematic moments and genres, with Zwick following the well-worn Hollywood template. You feel like you’re watching the ghost of a movie. There’s the greed angle, covered much better in films like Huston’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre or Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear. There’s the love-and-sacrifice angle, perfected by Casablanca and (egads!) Titanic. There’s the broken- family angle, as Solomon’s son gets taken by the RUF and force-fed ideology, amphetamines and gun lessons to turn him into a conscienceless killing machine. This is perhaps the most tragic part of the movie, kids being trained to kill. But I’m not sure it’s essential to the plot, so much as an excuse for Zwick to stage yet another noisy blast ‘em up scene.
Back story is given short shrift here, but Danny gives us enough to show that civil war, indoctrination into killing, and desperate survival measures are pretty much the staple diet of Africa. (Danny was a Rhodesian boy whose parents were killed by rebels, later raised to kill for hire by the Colonel.)
Of course, the plot must inevitably trudge its way back to a large diamond buried by Solomon in the RUF diamond pits, where all roads conveniently converge. Maddy’s along with her trusty press credentials, to help these two no-hopers gain access to military-controlled areas. Solomon just wants his son back. And Danny, with that squinting gleam in his eye, is after the huge-ass rock, believing it’s his ticket out of hell. Wonder if he makes it.
It is exceptionally difficult to combine a socially conscious message with an action film, and not have the whole thing fall to pieces. Because it’s so schizophrenic, failing to deliver in the romance department, giving us skull-splitting explosions and scampering actors instead of intelligent action scenes, containing its "message" in little predigested sound bites uttered by Connelly and others, and recalling so many other movie genres, Blood Diamond is no prize. Though DiCaprio’s acting saves it from being just another empty Crackerjack box.