Good, but can't decide if it wants to be serious or not

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2014)

Blood Diamond is about a quick little diamond smuggler partnering with a local black man, with the former looking to get rich and the latter looking to save his family.
Movie has good camera work. Action is not too shaky and you can tell what is going on. And of course the beauty of Africa is guaranteed...as well as its wonderful civilian ugliness. You can tell the movie uses some CGI special effects on occasion but it does so sparingly enough. it looks OK.
Sound is good too. You get the local folk music, local French speaking rappers and on occasion some orchestral music. It sets a good atmosphere and is not overbearing.
Di Caprio's acting is not pleasant, but that is probably the point since he is playing a sleazy white guy. Sometimes he is convincing. Sometimes not so much.
Blood Diamond is not a bad movie overall, but there is something off about its nature and I am going to try and pinpoint it for you.
There is this one shot, a brief scene, that encompasses much that is wrong with the movie. A female character is sorrowfully looking at a refugee camp as the movie is convincing you how bad the situation is, but at the same time her shirt is unbuttoned just far enough for you to see her side-boob. She is standing there in the foreground together with the main protagonist, a blond white guy. Their black companion who's been searching for his family, is in the background and out of focus.
The movie shows how bad the civil violence is, but at the same time the main protagonist is a white guy who, of course, happens to be an ex-soldier and who can gun down faceless black men like chewing bubblegum....and he is of course given a photogenic white love interest, because even though the story does not call for it, that is what all action and adventure movies from Hollywood gotta do, right? This movie has a hard time breathing life into its imagery and its message because it insists of retaining elements of a cliché western action movie. I am trying to avoid writing major spoilers here, but once you watch about ten minutes of this film, you can pretty much predict the rest of it by yourself. The creators did not go as far as was needed because they were probably afraid to lose Western audiences.
And so, the story does not flow well, making strange choices, making some choices that belong in a movie that is serious about its material and choices that belong in a lighthearted action flick.
But...
It is entertaining. If you want a well put together action movie with an exotic tint, this will do.