Do a Beryl Roll!

Blood Diamond (2006)

Rating ... F (9)

Edward Zwick wouldn't recognize subtlety if it bit him on the nose, which explains why Blood Diamond is a disaster of epic proportions. A dramatization of illegal diamond trafficking in Africa, Blood Diamond is a the bourgeoisie primer on how citizens of the third world are killing each other for bling bling - "bling BANG" as the film glibly puts it - that joins the ranks of Bobby, Running with Scissors, and Little Children as the year's proponents of laughable, over-the-top melodrama. If conversation between actual human beings was a sandwich, these films would be like smothering it with mayonnaise so you can't taste any of the original components.

But it is not enough to simply offer hysteria; like many others Blood Diamond goes one step further to also hand-hold audiences through offensive commentary with patronizing, simple-minded film-making. To illustrate the title, Zwick includes a scene where DiCaprio apprehends shepherds smuggling diamonds into Liberia sewn under the skin of their flock. When eviscerated, the diamonds are of course bloodied... Blood ... Diamond! Blood Diamond, geddit? (Cue close-up.) Several scenes occur in flashback and Zwick splashes garish yellow filter over each to denote that we are watching "how it all played out" footage. He plays to the pathos cheap seats with tactics like a sound bridge from a baby's wails into generic African music. Other shots are hyper-stylized for no discernable reason, like an argument between Djimon Honsou (another film of his where all of his lines seem to have been written in CAPS LOCK) and Leonardo DiCaprio where the camera 360's around them before coming to rest, just as an explosion rocks the background.

Characterizations don't fare any better. Connelly's character is written as an idealistic harpy. Zwick does not make any attempt to elaborate on the RUF rebels who displayed as hulking, growling brutes waving rifles to the accompaniment of hip-hop; they are simply villainous barbarians meant to send a shiver up the SWPL spine. DiCaprio's easy progression from mercenary to activist situates him as an audience stand-in. His change of heart embodies the spirit writer Charles Leavitt details with his dime-novel dialogue urging folks to get up, get out there, and do ... uh, something. Then again, I am surprised the film even acknowledges its viewers to begin with; Blood Diamond is less a movie, and more sociopolitical porn so self-congratulatory an audience is scarcely required.