Great effort, great message, too much Hollywood

Rating: 7/10 (20 March 2007)

Blood Diamond is an excellent example of how Hollywood formulas can suck the essence out of a unique work of art. The film is exceptionally well done, with great performances, well-written characters, good research and, above all, shocking messages. To all those reviewers who thought it wasn't "interesting": Are you kidding me? Three of the most horrible tragedies of our times are shown in the film: - Africa's child-warriors - Militia-led smuggling supporting brutal civil wars and exploiting ancient hatred - The diamond monopoly and its ruthlessness. And the film shows how these are intertwined! If this doesn't touch you, I don't know what will.
But perhaps here lies the film's greatest fault. As other reviewers have eloquently mentioned, it apparently thinks it HAS to use Hollywood formulas in order to get the point across to a wide audience: so we have superstars, a romantic subplot, a cheesy ending, lots of action. And this, combined with the heavy messages of the plot, is just too much. It is no coincidence that so many reviewers used words such as "odd" and "confusing". They didn't mean they didn't follow the film, they just didn't know why it was going there (and back and forth again). Which was my feeling exactly. It's like listening to a beautiful song with great lyrics, and just as the text is about to grasp you, a cheesy sax-solo rises.
The film had too many sax-solos for its worth. It touched extremely important issues, but didn't have the guts to look the audience in the eye and scream out: "Are you finally listening? Look around you!" The Hollywood gutlessness is best shown in the final comments: They do explicitly mention the diamond industry's exploits, but then they advise the audience to "demand diamonds from peaceful areas". What? After having shown that the industry holds prices ridiculously high by convincing everyone that diamonds are valuable as such and oh so rare? And that you just NEED to buy or have diamonds as a sign of class, power, and, most importantly, love... And all the producers want us to do is to ask nicely for a "good" diamond?...
If that movie touched you, find out more about the diamond brainwash and the African civil war tragedies. Open your eyes.