Saturday, June 09, 2007

Blood Diamond

Quick: Name the 2007 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award Winner.

I had to look it up, too.

While I have no quarrel with Alan Arkin's win--I thought he was terrific in Little Miss Sunshine--Djimon Hounsou's work in Blood Diamond is remarkable.

Maybe the role of a lifetime.

Hounsou's Solomon Vandy is a fisherman and father living in civil-war torn Africa in the early 1990's. As was--and still is--all too common, his life is disrupted when his community is invaded by rebels: his son is kidnapped and forced to be a child-soldier, while his wife and another child become lost in the confusion.

After discovering, and hiding, a rather large and incredibly rare diamond, Vandy finds himself surrounded by lots of folks who agree to help him find his family so they can get close to the diamond. Danny Archer (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a former soldier-turned-diamond-smuggler among them.

DiCaprio's acting is fine in the film, but it's overshadowed by the performance of Hounsou. The supporting actor allows the viewer to share the experience as he searches for his missing son, dodging military personnel, rebels and greedy bastards (read Archer) along the way.

Blood Diamond is a very good movie. Djimon Hounsou, though, made it great.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And...you should be glad that I saw it prior to my birthday. I shall not ever ask for another diamond. (That does not mean that I want office supplies, by the way. just not diamonds).

The Film Geek said...

I' m free! I'm free! :)