Excellence Out of Africa

Rating: 10/10 (27 August 2007)

To some, this movie is an un-holy alliance of Hollywood money grabbing white supremacist war mongers, overpaid crap actors and no-nothing politically naive writers. You only have to scan the "Hated It" one star reviews to see some of these points of view. There are some particularly bizarre viewpoints out there in the general cinema going populace of the world.
Others, however, have rightly given this movie the acclaim it so richly deserves. It must be incredibly hard to find just the right balance within a script when trying to combine the raw emotional gut-punch needed to convey the central message of a serious movie, whilst still making it entertaining enough to pull in crowds that will help to recover the budget. Edward Zwick and Charles Leavitt, director and writer respectively for Blood Diamond have fashioned a tour de force of film-making that exposes to a wider audience the harsh social and political realities of many African countries. Blood Diamond ranks alongside The Killing Fields in its sterling portrayal of man's inhumanity to his fellow man on an epic scale, whilst still retaining at its core a human interest story that can ground the audience that might be otherwise overwhelmed by sheer and pointless brutality.
The principal leads in Blood Diamond give performances that are both powerful and sensitive as required and special mention must be made for Leonardo di Caprio. Di Caprio is rapidly becoming a cinema great; his on-screen presence commands the film throughout and his acting abilities are rapidly becoming exceptional. Recent movies such as The Aviator and The Departed serve only to confirm this. After all, who is going to argue with Martin Scorcese's view of Leonardo's acting talents? Referring back to the one-star haters of this movie, I cannot understand how people can find fault with his Afrikaans accent, which is superbly judged and studied throughout the running time  if it wavers at all (which I don't think it does) it is worth remembering that he is, after all, an actor putting it on for crying out loud. (Actually, as an aside, I am getting disappointed by IMDb letting through so many ill-conceived and poorly judged two or three line reviews by people who can't even take the time to spell correctly. I thought that there was ten line minimum requirement for review?) Anyhow, I am not going to deconstruct the plot  others have done that here far better than I can. Suffice to say that Blood Diamond fully justifies the praise afforded it, to all parties concerned. It deserves ten stars and will take its place among the pantheon of modern epics that deliver blistering social commentary as well as thrilling spectacle.
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