Author: Dennis

Blood Diamond [2006]

Director: Edward Zwick
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly

This is a gripping story about two men, whose lives become closely intertwined when the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) is pushing back the government forces of Sierra Leone in the early 90s. One man, Danny Archer (DiCaprio) finds his trade (former-mercenary-turned-diamond-smuggler) hindered by the war, while he tries desperately to find a way to make enough money to get out of Africa. Another man, Solomon Vandy (Hounsou) finds his once peaceful village overrun, his eldest son taken as a child-soldier for the RUF, his wife and daughter sent fleeing, and himself taken as a slave to work in one of the many diamond rich areas of Sierra Leone.

The come together when Solomon finds a huge, 100+ carat diamond which he tries to keep from his slavers, right before government forces overrun the mining camp and take everyone prisoner. He manages to bury the diamond before being captured, however, but when word gets out in prison that he had found the diamond, Danny (also in prison for smuggling) decides to get close to him in order to get the diamond. Danny does it for the money, Solomon in order to get his son back. Together they travel through a war-torn Sierra Leone in search for the diamond and Solomon’s family.

It’s very powerful. Not Hotel Rwanda powerful, but it comes close. It’s made extra powerful by the fact that diamonds are traded over the backs of slaves, and sold to our fat, white arses in the west. We don’t realise what has happens sometimes to get us our engagement rings, or diamond-studded earrings. This film portrays the worst of days, before the Kimberley accord.

“T.I.A.; This is Africa.” A cold comfort that people remind themselves of whenever something bad happens to them. As if bad luck, bad fortune is somehow inextricably tied to Africa.

Bobby [2006]

Director: Emilio Estevez
Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Freddy Rodríguez, Laurence Fishburne, Christian Slater, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, William H. Macy, Sharon Stone, Heather Graham, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf

Great film about the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. on the day presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy gets assassinated minutes after hearing he won in California. It follows a handful of ordinary people (retired doorman, June bride, kitchen staff, starlet singer, hotel phone attendant, campaign staffer, etc.) and their day, which ends in tragedy.

While, story-wise, the movie isn’t challenging, its pace and disconnection from that main, important event, which trails through the story, tying everything together, is really…peaceful and fun to watch. All the stories have a sincerely social problem at their core, all of which were big issues on June 6th, 1968, the day the movie portrays.

I’m really happy to see Emilio Estevez do well with this film, and I hope to see many more like it. The only thing that I started out being a bit wary of was this tremendous cast. Sometimes a film is so star-studded you can’t see the story any longer. This film didn’t have that problem, since these stars all portray normal people with normal problems and normal lives, so their stardom is expertly stiffled. :)

Brokeback Mountain [2005]

Director: Ang Lee
Actor: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal

An absolutely fantastic film about two men who grow close while on a cattle-drive one season. They go their seperate ways and start families, but they always have intense feelings for one another. After getting back in touch with eachother they regularly go back to the spot where they originally met, Brokeback Mountain. Their love intensifies as time passes, and starts to influence the rest of their lives.

Heath Ledger especially, and Gyllenhaal to a lesser extent, puts down a fantastic performance, and the casting was spot on. Ledger as the stoic macho, and Gyllenhaal as the doe-eyed romantic.

The Departed [2006]

Director: Martin Scorsese
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone

A good film, but not a great film. I can’t help but compare it to the much more accomplished Infernal Affairs, of which The Departed is a remake. The acting is top-notch, although Jack Nicholson goes a bit over the top in his crazed-bad-guy-maniac role, and Di Caprio does an especially good job of portraying someone under the mental duress of an undercover cop who might not have the psychological fortitude for the job. The editing is absolutely abysmal, and perhaps that’s Scorcese’s quirky way of filming, but it wasn’t so much fun while in the cinema. He knows how to put a scene together like no other, he just doesn’t know how to start or end it, it seems. Ugly and sloppy.

See either Infernal Affairs or The Departed, but don’t see both, otherwise you’re going to be disappointed with the latter.

Babel [2006]

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Actor: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett

This story is told through the eyes of four different people, most of them continents apart, but all directly or indirectly involved in the shooting of an American tourist (Blanchett) in Morocco. Her husband (Pitt) is confronted by the inability for a lot of people to comprehend him as he struggles to get his wife some medical help in the middle of rural Morocco, while back in the United States his maid (Adriana Barraza) takes care of the children, but wants to attend her son’s wedding back in Mexico. America is claiming it to be a terrorist attack, while the Moroccan police desperately try to find the perpetrator in order to avoid a political conflict. The perpetrator is a boy whose father is a goat-herder, and recently bought the rifle used off a friend, who frequently acts as a guide for tourists. The man told his son to shoot jackals, but the boy got a little carried away showing off his prowess to his brother. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, a mute Japanese schoolgirl is struggling in her own world of being unable to communicate as her father is sought by the police for questioning regarding the rifle he owned, and gave away to his guide when hunting in Morocco several years back.

Each of the characters is faced with their inability to properly communicate with those around them. Miscommunication in every linguistic form you can think of passes the revue in this film, and ironically, I took my girlfriend to see it, who couldn’t understand the Dutch subtitles so was left guessing as to what happened most of the time.

Not as good as I thought it would be, relatively predictable, though you are constantly angry at how the characters seem to dig their own grave deeper and deeper, seemingly disconcerned with the consequences to others. It’s a long movie, but very, very beautiful.