Finally, a movie has made me happy that I'm not engaged and sporting a gigantic diamond. First, because then I'd have to feel guilty about sooo enjoying that scene of Leo in a towel (which I think we can all agree, deserved to be a lot longer than it was). And second because, duh, conflict diamonds. Seriously, though, BLOOD DIAMOND brings home in a dramatic and brutal way the cruel shenanigans that went on in Sierra Leone in the late 90s as the diamond trade...
...financed a civil war characterized by murderous gangs, children pressed into service as soldiers, amputations, and, of course, no satisfactory outcome. The story is told through 3 main characters, Danny Archer (Leonardo diCaprio), a Rhodesian mercenary and smuggler of little conscience; Solomon Vandy (Djimon Honsou), a fisherman who finds a rare large pink diamond when he is forced into the mines after his family is scattered and son kidnapped into the revolutionary army; and Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist looking into the illegal diamond trade. Their paths cross when Danny gets wind of the diamond that Solomon has found and buried and Maddy catches drift of the story. Their path takes them from Freetown as it is overrun by the revolutionaries to the battered countryside to the destroyed villages to refugee camps to the diamond mines and finally to a sort of salvation for all involved.
It's not pretty or easy, but neither is much of what goes on in Africa today. The mercenaries have a saying, TIA -- This is Africa. But by the end I was thinking, AIF -- Africa is Fracked. Well, parts of it anyway. The contrast between the beautiful landscape from which we all originate and the horrors that men can rain down on their brothers is overwhelming at times (and tear inducing).
But what about that Leo towel scene you ask? Yep, Danny arrives in some "city" and after cleaning up spends a few moments of screen time wrapped in a towel. Molto caldo, Leo. Aside from his basic hotness, Leo (who received an Oscar nom for Best Actor in a Lead Role for this movie, but was passed over tonight at the SAG awards for Forest Whitaker's work as another type of African devil) is one hell of an actor and sells the morally bankrupt Danny's transformation without a hitch. So handsome, so classy, so good on screen and otherwise out of our faces (take note, Owen Wilson). Djimon -- BTW, you were totally robbed tonight at the SAG awards! But there's still your Oscar nom for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- is so moving and breaks your heart so bad, even when he's doing the wrong thing. And Jennifer (you remember her -- she won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in A Beautiful Mind), damn, girl, you are way too beautiful for anyone to be able to pay attention to what you're saying. I mean, she's up there talking about diamonds and death, and all you can think is, crap, I'm unable to think straight when your face is on the screen. And I'm not gay. Be that as it may, Maddy's main role in the movie is as exposition fairy -- people get to explain what's going on to her, or she explains it for us, and that's all good.
Director Ed Zwick, God love him, usually makes a movie with a message (think: The Last Samurai). Here, the message isn't intrusive until the very, very end, when he informs us that in 2003 the Kimberley Process was set up to help keep conflict diamonds (such a silly, first-world euphemism) off the market. All well and good, but then he tell us it's up to consumers to make sure the diamonds they buy are "conflict-free." Overkill, Ed. But you can see why I'm glad I'm not sporting that monster diamond.
ETA: On a big happy note: Congrats to the cast of Little Miss Sunshine on their SAG award for Ensemble Acting in a Motion Picture!! One of the last year's best.