Happy Throwback Thursday!
Today I've decided to review the 2006 Edward Zwick movie, Blood Diamond. This film is about a diamond smuggler and ex-mercenary named Danny Archer, who "teams' up with a fisherman named Solomon Vandy to find a large pink diamond and Solomon's son all during a civil war in Sierra Leone. Blood Diamond's not a great movie. It has a cool plot with good acting and great editing, but instead of subtly a inserting message into the film you get hit over the head with the whole anti-diamond message. After a while the reuse of the message gets tiring but bearable, towards the end it starts to get plain annoying and preachy. Other than that, I actually liked the movie. Djimon Hounsou was kind of annoying and a bit too angry at the beginning but in the middle his performance picked up and he did a more than decent job (he got a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role here). Jennifer Connelly gave the one performance I didn't like here. She was fairly emotionless and just dragged the story down. I don't think she's a bad actress in general, but she acted poorly here in my opinion. Leonardo DiCaprio did the best acting job in the whole movie. His accent wasn't great but he delivered his lines with such conviction and he showed emotion so well, it was like he wasn't even acting. It was like the character of Danny Archer was as easy for DiCaprio to slip into as his own clothes. His performance was great, he deserved the Best Actor nomination he got completely. Although the plot occasionally lacks, the editing and camerawork more than make up for it. There are a lot of absolutely stunning aerial shots of Sierra Leone and the forests that surround it. The editing for the action scenes is so fast paced and awesome, you feel like you're there with the characters. In the film The Last King of Scotland, the documentary style "shaky" camera technique was used excessively to the point of anger. Blood Diamond only occasionally uses the technique and when it does, it uses it very well. Blood Diamond is an alright film with some great performances and terrific editing and beautiful shots. Even though it's just okay, it's still quite exciting and DiCaprio is still awesome. I'd recommend it. Happy Viewing! You can follow me on Twitter @WhitsMovies and like me on Facebook at Facebook.com/WhitsMovies!
Leo is the man in this, and steals every scene he's in. Good thing too, because he's just about in every scene of this movie. Nice review Whit.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm certainly with you on that one, DiCaprio's great acting certainly made up for all of the film's flaws.
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