Cheap Zirconia

Rating: 5/10 (22 April 2007)

I didn't know this was the same director who did "Thirtysomething" until after I saw this film. Now it's obvious he's still doing the same material only with bigger budgets and pricier actors. I like DiCaprio very much, I think he has a lot of talent and is developing into quite a fine actor. I wished he hadn't done this one though. I don't know if the writing was just so badly clichéd, lifeless and tedious or if this was a character not within his range. Certainly the former is true: the writing sounds like a smugly self righteous thirty-something American who feels somewhat guilty for his good fortune in this mostly unfortunate world and tries to alleviate his guilt by preaching about some of the evils in Africa and how he has brilliantly realized the solution to these evils comes down to a simplistic little step we can all do here and now. Of course being a sheltered, usually very self absorbed thirty-something kid his insights and solutions are naively simplistic and unrealistic. The situation this film is based on is very complex and the problems are so entrenched due to so many differing factors that a cute, neat happily-ever-after Hollywood solution won't work no matter how much wishing and believing we want to do. As well, every time DiCaprio did the white African accent I had to wince a little because it sounded just slightly off key enough to not seem natural.
I suppose I should mention Jennifer Connelly but after a few seconds with her character I kept turning away from the film and thinking of other things. She was so badly unrealistic as the savvy, seasoned reporter with her sophomoric self righteous indignation that she seemed to have been an irate and grotesquely self indulgent customer who was plucked from Macy's as she was raging at some poor clerk because the right shade of drapes aren't available that she "absolutely needs" because they go with her new carpet and is now doing this tirade in the middle of Africa in the place of some reporter. Her character seems better fitted for a "Twilight Zone" twist than anything resembling a reporter who has ever slept in a place worse than a Holiday Inn. (Ugh! Heavens no!)
Djimon Hounsou gives the only credible performance of the three main characters but even he can't save this smugly false vehicle from crash burning into a pile of toxic clichés. Perhaps my sights were too high, I had really enjoyed "The Constant Gardner" and felt everything worked very well in that slice of the exploited life in one of the way too many unfortunate places in Africa. But this was no Gardner, not even a part time one. This wasn't even a decent "save the children" ad: at least the solution they offer may have some real merit, while this one was dreamed up by a detached arm chair observer who has come up with their solution by scanning page six of the Times and catching the tail end of a documentary or two. Like the solution for world peace given by a young beauty contest candidate, it has a lot of nice sounding words and phrases but it's nevertheless just a few cute platitudes that have no real practical value.
Edward Zwick is way over his head here. I'd appreciate it if he'd stick to another "thirty-something" venture. Those projects I can clearly see from far away are things I can avoid so as not to have my intelligence insulted by a smugly self righteous and self absorbed preacher who thinks he has all the brilliant solutions to all the problems and lives he hasn't the vaguest real knowledge of beyond what he's caught in a National Geographic article and thinks by looking carefully at the accompanying pretty pictures he can figure it all out.