Blood Diamond, Patronizing elegy

Rating: 1/10 (23 January 2007)

Africa is a really bad place to live, as heroin addicted black rebels kill and rape for a handful of precious pebbles. Luckily the Americans are coming in the shape of a lovely Jennifer Connley in the role of the mouthy naive journalist and Leonardo Di Caprio, ruthless Rhodesian diamond smuggler. Bad boy!
Surprisingly not it is their story, no matter what happens to poor Djimon Hounsou: his village and living destroyed, his family lost in the war and his son kidnapped by hip-hop listening black rebels, all neatly packed within the first 10 minutes of this 3 hours and more, epic masterclass in Cliché'.
"Let's hope they wont find oil here! Otherwise we would be in real trouble!" Says the mad old man to the extravagantly accented DiCaprio crossing a devastated African village.
About two-thirds into the film, the pressure builds up even more. When it is he again, good old Leornardo, that pulls off a masterful moment of exacerbating emotional puree. It is his confession to big eyed Connely, almost an excuse for behaving badly till then, that his family got killed, his mother raped and his dog tortured with ten hours of compulsory viewing of Patronizing Warner Brothers films.
Blood Diamond opens this week in the UK and watch out, it is here to stay. Nominated to way too many golden globes and little statuettes to mention, Edward Zwick's latest effort is surely well received. Or is it? Yesterday newspapers reported of the angry DeBeers, world leader of the diamond market with 40% of the overall market, accusing the film of bad publicity. Fancy that! What are all those glamorous starts going to wear the night of the Oscars? Good old fashionable populism WB style.