Diamante de sangre

Una combinación muy bien hecha de drama social y aventura de acción. Las oprimentes escenas de violencia se intercalan con una acción arrebatadora, atemperada por diálogos intimistas, y este patrón se repite una y otra vez, haciendo que Diamante de sangre por desgracia, a veces resulte tediosa y repetitiva. Al final, sin embargo, sigue siendo un digno representante del cine de primera categoría de Hollywood, como casi todo lo de Edward Zwick. Y eso es gracias a unos efectos visuales preciosos, una ambientación atractiva, grandes actores y un montón de escenas realmente fuertes. Especialmente la última. (21.01.2007)

No estoy familiarizado con los eventos actuales ni pasados ​​en Sierra Leona, por lo tanto, no puedo juzgar la veracidad histórica. Sin embargo, después de ver esta película, me llevo tres importantes puntos: 1) Estoy muy contento de haber nacido en Europa Central. 2) Bajo ninguna circunstancia iré a Sierra Leona, incluso si hay paz absoluta. 3) Definitivamente leeré más información interesante sobre Sierra Leona. Blood Diamond no me provocó ninguna emoción adicional. La primera mitad me pareció bastante buena, pero la segunda es completamente estadounidense, llena de clichés, increíble, muy débil en los diálogos, cuando Solomon habla casi sofisticadamente sobre la situación en Sierra Leona y luego habla emocionado y ingenuamente sobre su hijo, cómo se convertirá en médico. La última llamada telefónica es una farsa de primera categoría, esos tipos con ametralladoras seguramente esperaban a que Danny charlara con la fotógrafa. Y el aplauso de pie, sin eso, una película estadounidense ni siquiera sería lo mismo. Hace un momento leí en las curiosidades que Russell Crowe iba a interpretar el papel de Danny, eso podría haberle dado un enfoque diferente. Es un tipo duro hasta los huesos. Leonardo queda mejor en el Titanic, Romeo y Julieta o La Playa. (28.08.2008)

The epic production design, brilliant technical side and the suitably booming soundtrack by James Newton Howard are the indisputable pluses here. The makers achieve the almost impossible for most of the movie, successfully balancing on the edge between an adventure movie in Romancing the Stone style, while also having enough time to highlight the problems in Sierra Leone, and perhaps most of the African continent. The action scenes are intense, and the dramatic storyline has balls. What prevents Blood Diamond from getting a better score is the closing quarter hour where the hitherto well-constructed characters turn into one-dimensional cutouts. Everything ends up as expected and we even get a moral at the end for those who managed not to understand what Zwick is saying the whole time using “movie language". An ending like that might be okay for family viewing, but in a politically engaged movie this is absolutely at odds with the rest of it. And that is doubly disappointing in a movie of this quality. (25.01.2007)

Here, the current trends of an indictment of crooked deals with ostentatious goals, preferably set in Africa's own blood-plagued landscape, is blended into a reasonably intelligent spectacle that doesn't have the heavy-handedness of Hotel Rwanda, nor is it as uncompromising as The Constant Gardener. Nonetheless, it is fantastically shot (the run through the streets, or the final purge, are among the action highlights of the year) and still sensitive to the subject matter despite its more mainstream conception, and the acting is also very vital. This relates to more than DiCaprio, from whom it's kind of expected, but from the phenomenal Djimon Hounsou, with whom the viewer shares a plethora of emotions ranging from sadness to laughter to fierce anger. It is he who carries the film and without him, this perfectly polished piece of work would be only half as good. (25.02.2007)

Visually, there is nothing to complain about. Every dollar of the 100 million budget is visible in the generous production design, Zwick is very good at action scenes, the two key ones, the massacre in Freetown and the attack on the RUF camp, are examples of great filmmaking. But the film fails in the story, which is an amalgamation of a poor attempt at some kind of overarching idea pointing out the pains of contemporary Africa, and a completely bland plot. It’s written according to the tried-and-tested formula of mainstream Hollywood productions, with a predictable plot and a lot of clichés, including a cheesy final phone call that definitely left my eyes dry. This is also because the script gives very little space to the emotional tension between Archer and Maddy, whose tears – thrill me, kill me – I simply didn't believe, and even the strong scenes (the training of small RUF adepts) get completely lost among the plot ballast. There was no deep lasting experience, only "watch it and forget after a while". Otherwise, Djimon Hounson's expressive performance was once again a pleasure, DiCaprio has finally manned up and stole some scenes (I could feel his suppressed anger at Hounson during a great scene with a hunted baboon) and his work with a machine gun during the attack on the RUF camp would be appreciated even by John Rambo :) (24.01.2007)