A Gem of a movie.

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2011)

I love this this film. Leonardo DiCaprio is amazing in it and should have won the Oscar. His mannerisms, his accent and his entire realisation of the character Danny Archer is perfectly pitched in this film. The character he creates is definitely my favourite character of his so far, with an honourable mention to Howard Hughes, the part he again portrayed superbly in The Aviator. Anyway, DiCaprio elevates this movie from a routine action piece to a really interesting character driven story. However, whilst I found his character fascinating I did not care to much for Djimon Hounsou character of Solomon Vandy. In fact, I felt the character was overplayed and somewhat corny. Also, the main storyline of the film is about archer and Vandy etc trying to rescue Vandy's son from the grasps of an evil dictator. However, all becomes a little far fetched and contrived at this point as his good natured son seemingly gets turned into a killer within a space of less than week.
So, to conclude I love this film because of Leonardo DiCaprio character Danny Archer, but as well as that the film does feature some great dialogue, some terrific action sequences and also some beautiful shots of South Africa. Therefore, I recommend that you check this movie out. 8/10 (4*)