Blood Diamond

"Essentially a romantic adventure story with politics in the background—an old-fashioned movie, I suppose, but exciting and stunningly well made..."

"It is brain-fryingly boring. Here we have a film with all the gravitas, humane purpose and epic length of a classic, but with a lukewarm, uninvolving and slow-moving story, and with characters whose every action is predictable from at least an hour off. Director Edward Zwick tried to make a great movie, but somewhere in the process he forgot to make a good one..."

"DiCaprio is terrific, but he can't save this lecture from the shame of using Africa as a vehicle for another white man's redemption..."

"That Blood Diamond penetratingly, and sometimes punishingly, shows precisely how this is the case without ever turning into some kind of lecture is its triumph..."

"Like the gem in question, it's just too big, too pretty and far too precious for its own good..."

"An ambitious film that can be viewed as either half empty or half full, "Blood Diamond" attempts something difficult and problematic. It can be pulled apart or appreciated, depending on your mood, but it should be recognized that movies like this have become as rare and potentially valuable as the stone that sets its plot in motion..."

"To the unlikely role of a Bogart-esque reluctant hero, Leonardo DiCaprio brings an intensity that compels even when the script falters..."