Surely one of the most frustrating films of the year, because it has so much going for it: money, location shooting, stars, a fascinating subject matter and a terrific story. Leo di Caprio as a Zimbabwean mercenary – great. OK, maybe ten years too young in a role that really needed Russell Crowe (something which could be said about Ed Zwick’s last film, The Last Samuari), but his accent is pretty good and it’s a tremendous character. Djmon thingo as a Sierra Leonean cut off from his family and trying to find them – great. Jennifer Connelly as a journo – great. The macguffin of a pink diamond – great. Setting it during Sierra Leone’s civil war – great. Involvement of diamond companies and mercenary companies in said war – great.
It’s all set up for a wonderful film – and things get off to a flying start with the opening horrific sequence of an attack by rebels on a village. Limbs chopped off, people killed at random, it is all too believable. (Indeed, I thought at this stage that the reason behind the film’s mixed critical reception was liberal reviewers were uncomfortable with the truth of what is happening in Africa.)
We meet Leo, establish his character, he’s thrown in gaol – all good. Problems then start with the structure. Even after Leo finds out about the diamond, he gets Djmon out of gaol – but doesn’t approach him, he makes this side detour to South Africa. Now we need to know the information about Leo needing money to pay back his debts, but that could have been done in the scene with Leo meeting up with his old mate in Freetown. It’s more logical that after Leo busts this guy out of gaol, he would get into contact with him straight away. But they have several meetings before this happens. This doubling up of scenes is a theme through the film. Then there are two scenes where Leo meets Jennifer Connelly – why not one? And they should have met beforehand to give them some history, would have saved time.
Leo and the black guy then go looking for the diamond as a duo, then Jen comes along for a bit, then they go off as a duo again – at which point then there is a ten minute bonding sequence, which starts with them arguing, fighting then becoming friends. This is too late in the film – they should have gone through this sort of character development when they first got together, before Jen came along. When it happens its after Jen and Leo say a big teary farewell, and it doesn’t feel right; it’s too late in the film.
Speaking of the top of Leo and Jen farewells, there are too many of them, too – they say goodbye, then she does her bit with the solider and Leo leaves… then she sees him and says goodbye again. Then later in the film Leo gives Djmon Jen’s card and tells him to say goodbye – then Leo goes and calls her on the phone. And at the end when Djmon meets the banker guy, he gets shown the money while Jen secretly takes photos of it – then Djmon asks for his family as well. So we have another scene where Djmon meets the banker and gets the money and his family while Jen secretly takes photos of it. Why not just have the second scene, especially as it’s the end?
The film also has this awful “tsk tsk tsk” tone at times. It’s like the filmmakers went “OK let’s get our point across by just telling a story” but then spontaneously combusted and went “what if they don’t get it? We’re white people making a film about Africa no one cares about Africa this may be the only chance we have to get our point across!!” So we Jennifer Connelly getting on the soap box, visiting the refugee camp and going “one million refugees – that’ll be one minute on CNN between the weather and sports.” Get stuffed, Jen. She also keeps lecturing Leo’s character about his complicity. Thing is, her character has a totally decent motivation – to get a story. But that’s not enough – it feels as though this character was rewritten, they were scared of making her seem greedy and so a layer of sanctimoniousness was poured over it. It didn’t have to be that way – she would have still done the right thing, they just would have cut out the fat. It doesn’t help that her and Leo don’t have much chemistry (some history between them would have helped).
There’s also the stuff about the South African mercenaries. All through the film we are shown how awful the rebels are, right? And the mercenaries are employed by the government to fight them – isn’t that a good thing? OK they go in shooting – but we’ve seen how nasty the rebels are, they’d be silly to go in any other way. Yes, they should lose points for selling guns to the rebels, but at least they do things professionally, they don’t go around torturing and killing indiscriminately. Yet they’re supposed to be the bad guys – after Leo negotiates a deal with them for the diamond, 60-40, why does he then kill them? He can cut Djmon into a share, and be evacuated home. Are we meant to go, “no that’s not right, Djmon is entitled to all the proceeds of a diamond he just happened to find in a river?” Does he really need a couple of million pounds? He wants to get his family back, by that stage he has. (He doesn’t seem to offer to give the money to the poor at the end or anything.) It’s certainly not worth Leo dying for. It turns Leo into a welsher, too – he breaks his promise to his old boss; Djmon betrays the people he sells the diamond, too, as well – gets his money and his family, then lets them get all the bad PR. This is supposed to be the moral high ground?
I think they were just determined to have some white villains. Then there’s the spiel at the end: “it’s up to the consumer to buy conflict free diamonds”. Give us a lecture, why don’t you? Why not say “hey, you can get a certificate to buy it conflict free” instead of treating the audience like they’re school children. This is the worst sort of Hollywood knee jerk liberalism, the kind Spielberg likes to put at the end of his films (eg “I could have done more” in Schindler’s List, “earn this” in Saving Private Ryan, “let’s set all the murderers free” in Minority Report).
African political films are problematic because they are inherently depressing. This needn’t have been that way – they did sign a convention against blood diamonds, the civil war is over now. But, no, we have to pay – well, Leo does anyway (in a For Whom The Bell Tolls moment), while the black man and his family are the face of the future. (This differs from old movies about Africa such as Simba and Something of Value where the black man wound up dead and the white man was left to raise the black child. That’s progress.)
The irritating thing is Hollywood needs more intelligent action films and the under-performance of this at the box office will hurt it, when the real problem is simply structure. Oh, and sanctimoniousness.
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