Hot-buttered opinion on the latest flicks

Blood Diamond

Thu., Dec. 7, 2006 4:00 PM PST by Luke Y. Thompson

C+

Edward Zwick, will you please step down off your soapbox? You could make some really cool action movies if you weren't so concerned with pausing the action periodically to push a message.

We get it: Don't buy diamonds that help fund militias. Now, can't you just let us enjoy watching mercenary Leonardo DiCaprio, journalist Jennifer Connelly and fisherman Djimon Hounsou run through the Sierra Leone jungle as bullets zip by? No?

Okay, fine. Look, some of the social stuff is good—the scenes where kidnapped children are brainwashed and hooked on drugs by African militias and then taught how to kill are nicely done, and appropriately disturbing. But we get it; you don't have to have Leo and Jennifer stop every few scenes to take black-and-white photos and talk about good and evil. Trust the audience a bit more.

Oh, and that Nas song over the end credits is easily the dumbest movie tune of the year. "Everybody wants heaven but nobody wants dead [sic], everybody wants diamonds without the bloodshed." Do you want people to leave the theater laughing at your film?

On the plus side, however, financially strapped husbands-to-be can finally use Blood Diamond to muster a good argument for not shelling out the big bucks on that ring.