"Do you think I'm exploiting his grief?"

Rating: 3/10 (13 May 2007)

When did action-adventure movies become so relentlessly mercenary, with scenes of bloody torture and mass mayhem (vis-à-vis political turmoil) replacing all the thrills? Edward Zwick's "Blood Diamond" is morose and despairing--bloodshed in the sunshine--and is filled with ludicrous platitudes and world-weary observations from characters who fail to learn from their own mistakes. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a diamond smuggler from Rhodesia (talking with a clammy, unconvincing accent) who attempts to partner up with a poor fisherman from Sierra Leone, Africa (Djimon Hounsou) whom he believes knows the whereabouts of a rare pink diamond. A sub-plot about the fisherman's young son being trained for the guerrilla army is pretty brutal, yet it's just used as padding for this story, as is Jennifer Connelly's fatuous role as an American journalist who spits out bitter cynicism about her wealthy, indifferent country (after joining the two men, Connelly asks DiCaprio if she's exploiting the fisherman's grief, a question which the filmmakers would be well advised to ask themselves). Extremely well-produced and filmed, the picture has just one standout performance (by Hounsou, whose urgency grounds the movie in a solemn reality) and much screaming, gunfire, and anguish. Zwick may have purposefully ditched the high-end adventure of old-school films in the smugglers genre, but his political high-mindedness is a drag and the dialogue and most of the characters are insufferable. *1/2 from ****