3 gibbles out of 5

Director: Edward Zwick

Sometimes a two-star movie is better than a three-star movie. So: Blood Diamond is not a bad movie, it’s just incredibly generic. This is not unexpected, as Edward Zwick, from my experience, has helmed some rather bloated, over-long Hollywood films that are not unwatchable, just unsurprising. And the presentation is a big part of the blandness here.

While I have really enjoyed Leo’s film choices post-Titanic, and while I do believe he can pull of the accent here, there’s something about his performance that skates along at surface level in this film, same with Jennifer Connelly and Dijoon Hounsou. These are all good actors portraying their roles well, but when the various people constructing a movie decide to use cuts to typically beautiful scenery with a warm-palletted sun in the background as sensible transition shots, too many women crying and children holding guns as “oh my lord this is serious” set pieces, and canned, predictable dialogue, even good actors cannot overcome the “playing it safe” sense that pervades the film.

Which is too bad, because the topic matter is serious and interesting, it’s just pieced together way too heavy-handedly to work. The narrative structure does not take twists or turns, but rather plods through a structure that seems necessary just to weave the principles together. Again, it would’ve been more believable had the film not plagued its viewer with a non-stop “moving” African beat and 143 minutes of unnecessary running time.

Three stars because nothing is directly wrong (hey, it was nominated five times omg), but lacks the fun some two star movies have.