About 1800 hours a woman rushed past me. 'Ha' I thought. 'She is struggling home from work, probably because she doesn't have a free cinema ticket for tonight'. And then it occurred to me 'I don't have a free cinema ticket for tonight either'. It was still at home on my coffee table. I quickly weighed up my options: go home and come back, not see a film, or pay to see a film. I decided (or maybe I didn't, if you ask Scott Adams) to go for the latter option. And since I was paying I thought I'd see a movie that you couldn't get into with a free ticket: Blood Diamond. Little did I know then that free ticket passes were in fact allowed: the cinema was absolutely packed.
Blood Diamond is one of those rare films whose trailer and title are worse than the actual movie. I had not particularly wanted to see it, and am now very glad that I have. It's a good film. I suppose it's an intelligent action movie, but that doesn't really do it justice. The cynical might say the meaning and the message behind it are designed to make us feel less guilty about enjoying the violence, but again I think this is too harsh. The ending is not very Hollywood at all (and not quite fitting), and the 'romance' never actually happens - which I think is promising. Jennifer Connelly's character was quite annoying, but Leonardo DiCaprio was very good, his accent believable. The film explores and explains a real, recent and terrible, situation with a surprising lack of sentimentality (until perhaps the end). From really the first five minutes this is a powerful and compelling movie and well worth watching.
(I saw this at the Odeon Marble Arch.)
No comments:
Post a Comment