Leonardo di Caprio gives me the hives. And not in a good way. Apparently I was the only one who didn’t L-O-V-E “Titanic”, and I am quite unable to see his “boyish” charm (or so I have been told). Although the charm still eludes me, I did like “Blood Diamond”, and Leo in it. He acts well, displays just the right amount of recklessness and vulnerability, so much so that poor, old, unmoving me really felt for his character.

Blood Diamond takes us through the blood and gore of diamond mining in Sierra Leone, where civil war rages, and the ordinary citizen is buffeted on one hand by mercenary rebels, and on the other by an almost uncaring government. It’s the story of street-smart orphan, Danny Archer (Caprio) who is part hired gun and part diamond smuggler, hedging his bets on the shiny stones he smuggles across countries. An opportunist, he comes across the opportunity of a life-time when he meets farmer Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) in jail, and learns that Vandy has discovered a large pink diamond, and has hidden it from the rebels. To Archer that diamond is salvation, his ticket out of the South African continent and freedom from a ragged, uncertain life. But to get at it, he must help Vandy re-unite with his family and also rescue his young son Dia (Caruso Kuypers) who’s been taken by the rebels. To this end, he seeks help from reporter Maddy Brown (Jennifer Connelly) who offers her assistance in return for details from Archer on the laundering of “conflict diamonds”. And thus Archer sets out with Vandy to track down the rebels and get Dia . . .

The film is fast-paced and keeps one engrossed. There’s lot’s happening; you can safely call this an action/adventure film in it’s own right. It’s also very gory and violent, and shows quite starkly the murder of innocents at the hands of young, indoctrinated kids, who’ve been captured by the rebels and brain-washed. Leaves one squirming.

The film is strongly scripted, and the characters well-defined. Leo’s character gets the most action, since it’s basically his story. Caprio has come a long way since his “Titanic” days, and has morphed gracefully from his chocolate-boy image to stronger, more complete roles, playing them with conviction and sincerity. At the beginning of the film Archer seems a cold-blooded, selfish cad, but gradually the story brings to the fore his more redeeming qualities to make him a hero you might not see eye to eye with, but who’m you’re cheering for nevertheless. The other main character in the film – that of farmer Vandy is also played handsomely by Hounsou. Jennifer Connelly’s role in the film is marginal, but she does a good job within the limited scope and the cliched delineation of the character.

Sanctimony and violence apart, this is the kind of film I like to watch. A good yarn, strong characters, convincing acting, and non-stop action mixed in with a hint of romance and the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from watching characters rise above themselves makes “Blood Diamond” a must watch.

Looking at the poster with Will Smith looking all beatific, and Smith junior looking fairly pleased too, one might think this a “happy” film. But “The Pursuit of Happiness” is one of those sad, sad movies which make life seem like a tightrope walking exercise – one misstep and you fall down into the dumps. I don’t regret watching the film – it was engrossing , but it was also torturous (as was Babel), seeing the protagonist trying so, so hard and yet coming up with one bad day after another. Yes, there is a happy ending, a moment of triumph, but it is so fleetingly small, as compared to the length of the movie, that it failed to give me the feel-good buzz I’d been hoping for. Based on the real-life inspirational story of stock-broker Chris Gardner, the film takes us on a short tour of Gardner’s travails when he’s stranded with an unwise decision to invest in expensive bone density scanners and an inability to sell them, thus leaving him in dire economic straits with a wife who works double shifts at a waitressing job and a small son. The wife (Thandie Newton, who was also in “Crash”) finally leaves Chris after a tussle over the son’s custody and moves to New York.

Gardner meanwhile is almost down and out when he decides to try out for a 6 month internship with the brokerage firm Dean Witter. The 6 months are a struggle because besides being unpaid, the internship promises only one out of the 20 interns a job, and Chris must stretch himself very, very thin to accommodate his work, son, and the many unpaid parking tickets, and taxes which land him temporarily in jail and bankruptcy. So Chris and little Christopher must live in homeless shelters and once even in a BART public bathroom, Chris all the while ensuring that his peers at Dean Witter are unaware of his homelessness and dire financial straits.

Will Smith acts beautifully as the tenacious Chris Gardner and Jaden Smith (the real life son of Smith) as Christopher is sweet and natural – a child not understanding the specific circumstances of homelessness, but realizing that his father is a “good papa”. Thandie Newton as Chris’s wife Linda, shown doing scut work to tide the family over it’s financial struggle, is stressed and shrill with the pressure, and I really felt for her – she really did seem to be taking the brunt while her husband tried unsuccessfully to be a salesman. Newton was very realistic in her portrayal of Linda, and in some reviews on the Net I read her character as shrill and screechy, and I’m wondering how else a woman under those circumstances is supposed to behave – sweetly smiling and saintly ? The commonsense media review is simplistic in it’s summation of the situation – in particular it has this to say under “message – social behavior” :

Perpetually irritated mom abandons her son; noble father dotes on son and is dedicated to taking care of him.