Starring:
Year of Release: 2006
Rated: R
Director: Edward Zwick
Approx. Running Time: 143 minutes
Format(s): DVD
My Rating: 4 stars (Out of 5)
Trailer:
From Back Cover:
"SPECTACULAR, EXCITING AND STUNNINGLY WELL MADE."
-David Denby, THE NEW YORKER
AN EX-MERCENARY TURNED SMUGGLER (Leonardo DiCaprio). A Mende fisherman (Djimon Hounsou). Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside. Directed by Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai), this urgent, intensely moving adventure shapes gripping human stories and heart-pounding action into a modern epic of profound impact.
My Comments:
DiCaprio proves he's got talent to spare yet again, this time as a diamond smuggler in South Africa who, after a chance encounter with a man who has found an enormous - and extremely valuable - pink diamond, makes it his mission to coerce the location of the stone from the man who found it.
While the film seeks to enlighten viewers about the terrible violence involved in the collection and export of South Africa's diamonds, the movie is really about one man's personal journey as he goes from violent smuggler to heroic rescuer.
On another - unrelated - note, may I just express my extreme jealousy of Jennifer Connelly who has played the love interest of three out of four of my top favorite actors. Here her "Maddy Bowen" falls for DiCaprio's "Danny Archer." She's also played wife to Russell Crowe's "John Nash" in A Beautiful Mind and plays the wife of Joaquin Phoenix's character in the upcoming film Reservation Road (her second time working with Phoenix, who co-starred in Inventing the Abbotts in which Connelly played the love interest of Billy Crudup's character).
Go Back:
B
Rated R (MPAA)
4 Stars
2006
Drama
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