African Diamonds - Hollywood Style

Rating: 3/10 (19 December 2006)

This is a laughable little piece of nonsense where the very real dilemma of of the inhuman treatment of diamond workers in Africa is given the ultra-slick Hollywood treatment. Leonardo DiCaprio is the living embodiment of a clichéd soldier of fortune that has populated Hollywood films since the days of Clark Gable: a mean stone-cold killer who can blow away whole armies of militia single-handedly while still displaying enough sensitivity to melt the heart of Jennifer Connelly, surely the most gorgeous investigative reporter to ever set foot on the continent.
Djimon Hounsou is the film's only contact with reality, giving an earnest performance as a diamond mine worker who finds and hides a priceless 100 karat pink diamond and tries to use the windfall to find his family, who have been separated by the brutal militia that have forced him into slave work in the mines. But DiCaprio and Connelly's characters are silly, slick products of the Hollywood oil factory, and nothing that they do or say has any plausibility or packs any emotional resonance. The sacrifices Leo makes at the film's comic book finish are the acts of a movie star who requires a heroic ending in his contract, not the behavior of a genuine human being.