Good mainstream action entertainment with a credible "conscience" message

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2006)

(Watched in Toronto)
Can't remember when (or maybe it's always been that way) Hollywood started to mix an ingredient of political/social conscience in mainstream adventure/action movies. "The constant gardener" and "Syriana" are two that immediately come to mind but there must be plenty of others. "Blood diamond" can be ranked with the better ones.
The "conscience" element here is the atrocity resulting (at least partly) from diamond mining and smuggling in an African country, Sierra Leone to be exact, in the 90's. On the macro scale, we see ravaging civil war, brutal treatment of the innocent, shocking breeding (not literally) of child warriors, none of which is easy to stomach, and the combination of which invokes a nauseating hell. The movie makers spare no pain (in both length and details) in creating on screen an infernal that comes close to "Apocalypse now". There were in fact scenes that, quite conspicuously, referenced that movie of movies when it comes to depicting the hell resulting from war.
The mainstream adventure and actions come from two intertwining stories, honest fisherman Solomon Vandy's (Djimon Hounson) desperate effort to look for his family lost after a raid of his village and diamond smuggler Danny Archer's (Leonard DiCaprio) scheme to pull off one big deal which will allow him to leave forever the continent in which he was born and had a haunting childhood. Added to that is American journalist Maddy Bowen's (Jennifer Connelly) quest to write a story to expose the evil of the "blood diamond" trade.
Despite being too long (138 minutes) and mostly predictable, "Blood diamond" is a movie that is worth watching in the cinema (better still the giant "Silver City" franchise screens in Toronto). Breathtaking African landscapes aside, there are also action sequences at pandemonium proportions, the impact of which would be lost watching at home (even granting a good home entertainment system).
On an intimate scale, there is good acting as the movie, while starting slowly and with some suggestions of banality, does simmer to a few emotional scenes towards the end that are commendable. DiCarprio, playing the selfish mercenery with still a conscience buried deep inside (not exactly an unfamiliar character), is good enough to get a Golden Globe nomination to go with his other one from "The departed". Djimon Hounson, who is quite unforgettable in "The four feathers", is perfectly cast for the absolutely honest, simple, family-loving fisherman caught in the vortex of a hostile world. Jennifer Connelly can probably play the idealistic, determined young journalist in her sleep, but what she also brings to the screen is beauty and grace that is impossible not to fall in love with.