Hollywood's crocodile tears

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2007)

They say the best way to make people care about an issue is not reporting it in the news, but, sadly, by making a movie about it, with big name stars. However, I found this film a bit too slick and entertaining for its apparent noble intentions. In the end, I couldn't figure if the purpose was to make a film about conflict diamonds in war torn African countries and the plight of the people caught in the middle, in order to raise awareness about the issue, or an entertaining action flick that happens to use the subject of conflict diamonds to seem original and pretend it has a higher standard.
The plot was good and the acting was too (mostly Di Caprio's, who was excellent as the white African rogue mercenary, accent and all, and he sure managed the physical presence necessary for his role - first time I perceived him as a man and not a boy), but the film felt very formulaic and preachy - some of Jennifer Connely's morally superior lines, however true, were mere stereotypes and delivered with such self-righteousness that they sounded downright arrogant.
The characters seemed developed by using "by the book" methods that almost destroyed the viewer's chance to bond with them and give a damn about them and their circumstances, had it not been for some really good acting moments. The film was riddled with obvious CGI imagery, mostly in the scenes of violent attacks, which took away from the sense of true drama - the film went for quantity instead of quality, IMO, by cheapening the dramatic artistry into mere dramatic kitsch and ruining the emotional charge of the scene. I think it would have been more effective to resort to less grandiose images of violence, brutal death and destruction, and opt for a smaller scale depiction, by using real acting instead of CGI.
I'd say the intention was good, maybe the director and the screenwriters had a better film in mind, but somewhere, possibly in the producers' offices, someone screwed up what could have been an important film and a good cinematic feature, by turning it into a half-baked schizoid mix between a complex socio-political statement and the typical money-making Hollywood feature. Apparently, Hollywood gives a damn as long as it means making a profit.