Blood Diamond

Directed by Edward Zwick, Blood Diamond follows mercenary smuggler Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he teams up with an African fisherman (Djimon Hounsou’s Solomon Vandy) to track down a diamond worth millions of dollars. It’s clear that Blood Diamond takes quite a while to wholeheartedly get going, as the film’s opening hour, which progresses at an almost excessively deliberate pace, suffers from an absence of momentum that’s often palpable – with Charles Leavitt’s episodic screenplay placing a consistent emphasis on intriguing yet entirely superfluous digressions (eg Danny and Solomon come across a refugee camp full of children). Blood Diamond‘s overlong running time certainly plays a key role in perpetuating the erratic atmosphere, with, in its early stages, the movie benefiting substantially from star DiCaprio’s magnetic turn as the captivating central character. There’s little doubt, then, that the film grows more and more engrossing as it progresses, as Zwick peppers the narrative with a handful of engaging, exciting sequences that pave the way for an unexpectedly mesmerizing final stretch. (It’s difficult, for example, to deny the emotional impact of a stirring climactic sequence involving Hounsou’s increasingly compelling figure.) And although the almost comical lack of subtlety within Leavitt’s script remains a problem, Blood Diamond ultimately manages to establish itself as an old-fashioned yarn that’s often far more entertaining than one might’ve initially anticipated.

*** out of ****