BY JASON BLAIR
Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t the
king of the world now, huh?
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The diamond trade’s dark side
BLOOD DIAMOND: Written and di-
rected by Edward Zwick. Cinematography,
Eduardo Serra. Music, James Newton
Howard. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon
Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly. Warner Bros.
Pictures, 2006. R. 138 minutes. 44111
A
man arrives at a refugee camp in
Guinea looking for his family.
Denied entry, the man stands de-
spondent at a fence until, as luck would
have it, his family happens by. Since the
camp holds in excess of one million exiles,
calling the reunion convenient is like say-
ing the ocean is wet. It’s just one of a num-
ber of lapses in Blood Diamond that not
even several strong performances can
overcome.
We know what
happens when
people pursue
bright and shiny
objects to the far
ends of the earth.
The refugee is Solomon Vandy (Djimon
Hounsou). With him are Danny Archer
(Leonardo DiCaprio), a diamond smug-
gler, and Maddy Bowen (Jennifer
Connelly), a reporter itching to tell
Danny’s story. The three are linked by an
enormous pink diamond that Solomon
found (and then buried) while a slave in a
diamond camp. In exchange for Solomon’s
diamond, Danny will help Solomon find
his kidnapped boy. Once retired, Danny
will tell Maddy his life story — all 31 years
of it — which will probably take down an
international diamond cartel. In other
words, Blood Diamond wants to be your
basic cat-and-mouse thriller. Instead, it
plays like Pearl Harbor set against the
backdrop of an industry awash in blood.
Considering the seriousness of its
themes — namely, how our perception of
precious gems is at odds with the turmoil
involved in their extraction — Blood
Diamond is a disappointment. We’ve all
seen Raiders of the Lost Ark and Lord of
the Rings. We know what happens when
people pursue bright and shiny objects to
the far ends of the earth: People die in pro-
portion to their obsession with the objects.
But in Blood Diamond there’s very little of
the spontaneity that makes those other
films so great.
After a rushed but mostly crisp opening
sequence, the film alternates between self-
important speechifying and mayhem so
senseless and chaotic that it makes Pirates
of the Caribbean — the theme park ride,
not the film — look like a highly choreo-
graphed ballet. The violence in Blood
Diamond is both gratuitous and improba-
ble. A tiny band of freedom fighters, for ex-
ample — many of whom aren’t old enough
to drive — wreaks havoc far out of propor-
tion to the members’ number, age and size.
An inordinate amount of attention has
been paid to Leo’s accent in Blood
Diamond. For the record, Leo’s perform-
ance as a white Zimbabwean is excellent.
His accent, its fidelity to South Africa
aside, only wavers when Danny shouts,
which isn’t often. Shouting is for people
who lack Danny’s smooth exterior, his
007-esque sense of control. Unfortunately,
Blood Diamond occasionally asks Danny
to do things he simply wouldn’t. That in-
cludes swiveling his head around wildly
when he thinks he’s being chased or hand-
ing wads of cash, child-like, to men of un-
certain reputation — in public. (Or, my fa-
vorite, speaking very loudly when the con-
versation should be kept secret.)
Finally, I distrust movies in which any-
one says “This place is about to explode!”
and that gem makes an appearance here,
courtesy of Maddy. Connelly, smoky-eyed,
is radiant as Maddy, but far too clichéd as a
crusading journalist. She’s only a glimpse
of the character we could have seen.
Perhaps we expect too much from
writer/director Edward Zwick, who gave
us Glory almost 20 years ago. Zwick also,
after all, gave us Legends of the Fall, a
grandiose exercise in Hollywood excess
that Blood Diamond sadly resembles. ew
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Mark Beudert, Artistic
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FRIDAY DECEMBER 15, 11:50 AM
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DECEMBER 21, 2006 31