Blood Diamond

Une combinaison réussie de drame social et d'aventure d'action. Les scènes de violence oppressantes alternent avec des actions captivantes et sont apaisées par des dialogues intimes - et cette formule se répète incessamment, ce qui rend malheureusement Diamant sanglant par moments long et répétitif. Néanmoins, c'est toujours un digne représentant du cinéma hollywoodien de première ligue, tout comme presque tout ce qui vient d'Edward Zwick. Et cela grâce à sa belle esthétique visuelle, à son environnement attractif, à ses excellents acteurs et à de nombreuses scènes vraiment puissantes. Surtout la dernière. (21/01/2007)

Je ne connais rien de l’histoire actuelle et passée de la Sierra Leone, donc je ne peux pas me prononcer sur la crédibilité de l’intrigue. Mais après avoir vu ce film, j’en retire trois choses importantes : a) je suis diablement content d’être né en Europe centrale ; b) en aucun cas on ne me fera aller à la Sierra Leone, même en temps de paix ; c) je me ferais un plaisir d’en apprendre plus sur la Sierra Leone. Sinon, Blood Diamond n’a évoqué en moi aucune émotion particulière. J’ai trouvé la première moitié plutôt bonne, mais la deuxième est typiquement américaine avec plein de clichés, peu de crédibilité et des dialogues faiblards, notamment quand Solomon parle de la situation du pays avec une certaine sophistication avant de s’enthousiasmer puérilement et naïvement de son fils en passe de devenir médecin. Le coup de téléphone à la fin est de la pure connerie – comme si les truands à la mitraillette allaient gentiment attendre que Danny termine sa conversation avec la photographe ! Et une standing ovation dont un film américain ne pouvait probablement pas se passer. Parmi les faits intéressants, j’ai lu que c’est Russel Crowe qui devait jouer le personnage de Danny à l’origine ; peut-être aurait-on eu droit à quelque chose de meilleur, vu que cet acteur est un dur jusqu’au bout des ongles, là où Leonardo devrait plutôt se cantonner à Titanic, Roméo + Juliette ou encore La Plage. (28/08/2008)

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)

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)

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)