Movie Review: Blood Diamond

The storyline is thus: diamond smuggler (Leo DiCaprio) helps man (Djimon Hounsou) to reunite with family [which were separated during a child soldier raid] with help of activist journalist (Jennifer Connelly). Smuggler has motives other than purely altruistic.

Ok, I couldn't even get through this one (thank goodness for Netflix). The dialog was stupid, DiCaprio's "Africaans" accent was all over the place (sometimes sounding British, sometimes Southern drawl, mostly indeterminate) and performance lame, Connelly's activist journalist was stereotypical and worse, phoned-in. I could go on, but why?


Too bad, because there were themes of the barbary of child soldiery, forced labor/slavery involved in the conflict diamond trade, and generally the savagery of man with the absence of rule of law. Compelling issues in the right hands. Painful in the wrong ones. Now I like all three actors above, but not in this venue. Save your time, energy & money on something else; even the Bond film that involves conflict diamonds (Die Another Day) is a more compelling experience.