Zwick makes a muck out of costly trade business.
Dream selling retailers such as Tiffany and Cartier need not to worry – whatever deep social message that could possibly have been intended with Blood Diamond is lost because of its overly simplistic discourse of the diamond trade, its influx of numbing “entertainment†and by the lack of complacency from the storylines’ central three characters. Edward Zwick’s newest belongs to the many examples of Hollywood’s interpretation and treatment of the world’s political hot spots with little resemblance to savvy political thrillers such as The Constant Gardener or Syriana. This should have a positive impact in terms of box office coin, but won’t make a dent in the collective movie-goer psyche. This Christmas, diamonds are still a girl’s best friend.
In the late 90’s, in the hands of the Revolutionary United Front, the African nation of Sierra Leone was not only rich in diamonds, but was prosperous in the slave trade and efficient in crimes against their fellow man. Like any third world country with a valuable natural resource, wealth is spread amongst a lucky few. Zwick and Charles Leavitt find a way into the grim subject matter with a screenplay that plays with the theme of economics and trade. Here it is comprised of a high stakes, three-way trade-off where “one wants what another can offer†– thus a journalist wants a scoop, a father wants his son back and a prospector wants to get rich. Reminding of the Nicholas Cage’s renegade businessmen character in Lord of War, Leonardo DiCaprio’s diamond thirsty character is morally and ethically incorrect due to the nature of his profession, however the unapologetic poacher changes hats through different parts of the timeline largely due to a weakly written foreign journalist character with a higher sense of morals. Haven’t we seen this before? Having the odds stacked against the protagonist is one thing, but here he seems to be taking an unjustified risk that doesn’t match his own level of greed. Overall it becomes a case of poorly written dialogue meant to inform and shoddy acting performances meant to infuse the film with its emotional tone. Jennifer Connelly plays yet another underwritten female character who gets discarded like a used handkerchief, while Djimon Hounsou plays the vocally exaggerated distraught father. Leo shows that 2 weeks with a dialect voice coach can make do the job.
Shot on location (substituting one African location for another) the film looks the part thanks to the geography and the camera eye of photographer Eduardo Serra who does some excellent work on the numerous action sequences and while there is plenty of bang for your buck, the film’s key subject matters need not be moving at such a delirious pace. The narrative fleshes out the entire chain of the trade, but somehow the screenplay’s potentially biting dramatic and descriptive scenes such as a child soldier confronting his father are replaced in favor for highly glossed action sequences. Too bad, there is plenty of matter for discussion here, but such as Zwick’s last film The Last Samurai, this is a studio film where the emphasis is placed not in the nuts and bolts of the politics of the subject matter, but the nuts and bolts on how to sell a film with a star in the main role. When extreme brutality is shown the effects aren’t the desired atrocities, but are simply pieces of a story just like how extras with missing limbs come across like strategically placed wallpaper. Loaded with morality lessons and a bad guy’s final noble deed being a good one, this reeks of the usual Hollywood treament of world affairs. There are simply too many other valid options to check out during this busy holiday movie-going season.
