Blood Diamond

Sometimes I'm surprised at the extent to which becoming a parent has changed the way I view movies. This is most obvious, of course, when I'm watching bad things happen to kids. Whitney and I were both turned off by Syriana, largely because we felt a child's death in it was portrayed manipulatively, in terms of its impact on the audience. But I doubt we would have felt as strongly had we seen it before having a child.

Which leads me to Blood Diamond. The film is about Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a fisherman in Sierra Leone whose life is destroyed by the civil war there: He is separated from his wife and children and forced to mine for diamonds to pay for weapons for antigovernment forces. Worse, his young son is trained and indoctrinated by the rebels as a child soldier. (Though it's handled reasonably well, this is the part of the film you may find most difficult; Whitney had to leave the room a few times.)

It's also about Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a Rhodesian (he refuses to call it Zimbabwe) soldier of fortune who smuggles illegal conflict diamonds to Liberia, then sells them clandestinely to the world's largest diamond company. Archer finds out that Vandy found and hid a gargantuan diamond before a raid on the rebel-held mining operation. He proposes a deal: He'll help Vandy recover the diamond and his family, and they'll split the profits 50-50. They join forces with an idealistic journalist (Jennifer Connelly) who is willing to trade her press access to war zones for Archer's help in exposing the diamond conglomerate's involvement in the trade of conflict diamonds.

A lot of this, it must be said, is accomplished in movie-by-numbers fashion; for one thing, we've seen this partnership between the noble-man-concerned-for-his-family and the venal-adventurer-out-for-treasure many times before. In addition, Connelly's character seems to exist for little reason other than to provide a romantic interest for DiCaprio. Her scenes are consistently unconvincing—it's as if director Edward Zwick wants to get through them as quickly as possible, and back to what his movie is really about.

But Blood Diamond is an engrossing film, largely thanks to remarkable performances by the two leads. DiCaprio is as good as I've ever seen him. He's unafraid to let Archer be unsympathetic, and that helps him flesh out a stereotype into a complex character. Hounsou, meanwhile, is even better: This is a breakout performance, one that stays with you. He endows his character with a great reserve of emotion, mostly expressed in silence by this soft-spoken but furious man.

And while Zwick's direction can be heavy-handed at times, it hits more than it misses. For the most part, he wisely stays out of the way of the intrinsic drama (and, unfortunately, truth) of his subject matter; Hounsou and DiCaprio take care of the rest.

Granted, it may have more Queue Blocker potential, especially for parents, than just about any film I've recommended so far. Still, Blood Diamond is worth putting in your queue. Even if you do have to cover your eyes or leave the room a few times, you'll be drawn back in before long—just as Whitney was.