**1/2 (out of ****)
and
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
*** (out of ****)
2006
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Kagiso Kuypers, Arnold Vosloo, Michael Sheen, and David Harewood
Directed by Edward Zwick & written by Charles Leavitt and C. Gaby Mitchell
143 min R
Starring Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, and Gillian Anderson
Directed by Kevin Macdonald & written by Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan, from the novel by Giles Foden
121 min R
�Blood Diamond� still MEANS all the same things as it would have meant if it were made as the brutally quick 100-minute shoot-�em-up it ought to be. The only difference is that, instead of that meaning being a subtext to be drawn from the action, it has to be spelled out in dialogue, speeches, title cards, and TV interviews (no narration this time though). At the end, a character goes to the front of a boardroom to make a speech and I said to myself, �if we hear him, it�s two stars, but if we only see him, it�s two-and-a-half.� All that takes any extra 45 minutes, totaling over two hours. Which, if you don�t go to the movies very often, must make the whole shebang seem awful impressive.
I�m gonna summarize �Blood Diamond� in a second, and it�s gonna sound good, and the good parts are pretty sweet, but keep in mind they�re interrupted by �what we�re learning� dialogue interludes. The movie is about the ruthlessness and devastation caused by the diamond trade in West Africa, and it uses a vaguely �Good-Bad-Ugly� chase to illustrate its point. A white mercenary (Leonardo DiCaprio) out for a priceless diamond strikes a bargain with a black fisherman (Djimon Hounsou) out to rescue his son, setting the two of them on a bloody journey through revolutionaries, war-torn villages, corrupt officials, and overwhelmed hospitals. When bullets whiz, stuff blows up, and DiCaprio�s pops caps in bad guy�s ten-rings, �Blood Diamond� sings. Trim the exposition and Jennifer Connelly�s �I�m gonna tell the audience its lesson� journalist and we�d have a zippy little genre movie.
But you say, wait-wait-wait, we�re making a movie about Africa and the hero is a WHITE GUY? Really, in order to highlight the racial politics of how the continent and the First World�s relationship to it works, one of the two leads has to be white. It�s just unfair that the white guy gets to be dynamic, conflicted, learn a lesson, and essentially the main character, while the black guy is a noble savage who begins and ends the movie without flaw, existing primarily to teach the white guy a lesson. The director is Edward Zwick, who helmed the whiteguy�s-view-of-black-soldiers epic �Glory� and the whiteguy�s-view-of-Japanese-soldiers epic �The Last Samurai.� Maybe he just feels disingenuous if he doesn�t have a white lead.
With his �Lethal Weapon 2� accent and his plethora of dialogue, its easy to see why DiCaprio�s turn in this film was picked for Oscar recognition over his more subtle work in �The Departed.� It�s a good performance, and it�s also worth noting that, despite his prettyboy heartthrob splash in �Titanic� and his follow-up �The Man in the Iron Mask,� DiCaprio has chosen challenging roles over the allure of being a matinee idol. �The Aviator,� �Gangs of New York,� and �The Departed� aren�t romantic comedies, voiceovers in Pixar films, package-out superheroes, or Bruckheimers. (His only real concession to mainstream appeasement is his work in �Catch Me If You Can,� which is much too amiable to complain about.)
More successful in Africa is �The Last King of Scotland,� also the story of Africa through the eyes of a white guy. In fact, it�s practically �Training Day,� with Africa instead of the ghetto, a young white doctor (James McAvoy of �Narnia�) instead of a young white cop, and bloodthirsty dictator Idi Amin (sad-eyed Forest Whitaker) instead of Denzel Washington. At first, the white guy is charmed by the boyish and masculine freedom fighter, then gradually realizes, hey, this dude�s nuts.
�The Last King� is Forest Whitaker�s �Capote,� in which an eternally-capable character actor rides a real-life eccentric to well-deserved Oscar gold. Despite that Oscar, he might technically be a supporting character; it�s not inside his head that we get and he isn�t so much dynamic as he is gradually revealed. We�re inside the head of McAvoy�s white doctor, which limits the movie�s perspective. He changes and learns a lesson, even if he lacks Whitaker�s flamboyance and often fades into a set of eyes for us to look through.
Their relationship is more interesting than DiCaprio and Hounsou. Whitaker�s Amin is like a giant, out-of-control child � he does horrible things, but because he�s played by a giant droopy-eyed teddy bear we�re never sure what to make of him. McAvoy�s doctor is equally slippery. Like Ewan McGregor but with less personality, he is often just a jaunty young punk out to get laid, and we�re never sure if we want to love or hate this dashing clod.
Compared to the drag-out style of Oscar time, �The Last King� is a raw, intense, and tightly-bundled ride, not a prestige picture but a thriller, with oodles of local color crammed into its quick two hours. At once vibrant, faded, and washed-out, like it�s really from the �70s, director Kevin Macdonald (�Touching the Void�) keeps his camera restless and subjective � as if we know to be nervous even before our protagonist does.
Finished Sunday, January 28, 2007
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