Hey folks, Harry here with a test screening review of Ed Zwick's THE BLOOD DIAMOND, due out December 16, later this year. From the sound of this review - this may be Zwick's best film in quite some time. Now remember - this is a very early review of a rough cut of the film, without the final music, editing, color work and effects work. So Zwick will only be fine tuning it from here on out, but from the sound of it... he's made a pretty great film. Let's hope this part of the process helps him to refine the final elements till we're left with a truly great Zwick flick! Here's Microwavable with the low-down...
Heyo -
Username microwavable? here, I just caught the 8/24
Chicago screening of the new Edward Zwick flick "The
Blood Diamond," starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon
Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly. Not a bad movie
overall, but let me be the first lame-o to say it's a
. . . wait for it . . . diamond in the rough. ZING!
The film was mostly finished, with silly Times New
Roman titles and odd music recycled from "The Road to
Perdition." It clocked in at somewhere around 2 hours
and 40 minutes (though I can't be sure since they
swiped my cell phone).
It tells of the emerging indignities associated with
diamond mining and trading in South African countries,
an issue that the movie (and perhaps many diamond
retailers) will ultimately tell you peaked in the late
1990s. Hounsou stars as Solomon Vandy, an African
fisherman whose family gets swept up by a nasty group
of rebel fighters funded by diamonds mined in the
area. DiCaprio is Danny Archer, an African mercenary
of sorts who chases diamonds, and Connelly is Maddy
Bowen, a cliched American knockout journalist with an
edge. Solomon and Danny team up to seek a huge
diamond that Danny discovered and hid while enslaved,
and Maddy just kind of cheers them on while bemoaning
the injustices of it all.
DiCaprio carries an accent that is bizzare at first,
kind of like the Crocodile Hunter crossed with that
annoying African bit Brad Pitt does for a minute in
"Meet Joe Black." His character is a gun-toting
meathead, with an ongoing internal struggle about
whether he's partaking his quest for riches or for
African family values. It's a little vapid on paper,
but DiCaprio makes it work.
However, he's clearly overshadowed by the chops of
Hounsou throughout the entire movie. It's striking.
The plot centers around Solomon and how he is forced
to barter his hidden diamond for his lost family - and
every scene in that tale is gritty and feels
authentic. However, the film tries to interweave this
thread with Danny and his own sort of
live-free-die-hard values. It'd work if DiCaprio's
character were pared down to a sort of Jack Sparrow
type, but something is wrong when more time is devoted
to Danny idly kissing Maddy than Solomon's climactic
confrontation with his troubled son. It's just too
Hollywood for a moment or two.
This movie is clearly adults-only, as the violence is
off the charts. Some guy in the discussion panel
compared the gun battles to "Total Recall," and that
felt about right. Of course, they aren't as silly,
but just as gut-wrenching. In fact, all of the action
sequences feel sort of like a mix between "City of
God" and "Clear and Present Danger."
It's cool that Hollywood is banking more
politcal/suspense movies lately, and one could chalk
this one up somewhere between "Hotel Rwanda" and
"Syriana." But some edges in "The Blood Diamond" need
trimming before it really glosses.
Of course, any movie that has Leonardo DiCaprio
killing a baboon with a pocket knife gets a wacky
bonus.
-microwavable?
