Posted: 12/8/2006 12:40:55 PM EDT
| Anybody see this? I've read some good reviews on it...Wondering what ARFcom thinks (If anyone has seen it) is it out yet? |
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It looks like it's going to be load of nauseating PC crap to me. Poor good black man has nothing to do with violence and corruption in his own country even after the ethinc cleansings (e.g. Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, Belgian Congo to Mabuto, Portugese Angola and Mozambique to what they are now, Boer Farmers to present South Africa). It's still the fault of evil white man from US and overseas. But maybe Hollywood will suprise me and it will reflect the truth. 
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| Looks interesting to me. I will probably see it in the theatre. But yeah, the whole "blood diamond" thing is just another form of white guilt or wealth guilt. How the hell can you tell where a diamond came from and who profited from it anyway? I bet DiCaprio never gave a second thought to where the money he paid for all the cocaine he's snorted went to. |
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Saw it today, some of the scenes were very graphic, not that it bothers me, they're still fake. Premise and ending was all PC crap, but otherwise an OK movie, didn't totally suck, didn't overly rock. Lacked female nudity :-( R.U.F. are the bad guys, never surrender to them they'll just kill you anyway |
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Saw it today. It's not as bad as some of you think. DiCaprio puts out an excellent performance, what with that Afrikaner accent. Good action sequences, but otherwise it's a thinly disguised finger-pointing at De Beer, as if anyone is going to return their Christmas diamond just because of this movie. There was a Russian Hind doing what gunships do, M16's, underfolder AK's, and a Glock and HK pistols of undetermined caliber. As a side note about the woman reporter: how do you stay in Africa with 90 degree heat and 90% humidity, and still have that salon-fresh hair, Rembrandt-white teeth, and CoverGirl complexion?  Never fails.
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just like Bond 
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| I don't think you can call the movie PC. Archer (DiCaprio) recounted how his mother was raped and shot, and his father beheaded and hanged on a meat hook when he was 9. Most of the violence were done by Africans on other Africans, and it's hard to miss the irony of African warlord enslaving other Africans while giving that "Arbeit Macht Frei" speech. And notice that in a camp a TV was playing rap video with rapper flashing his diamond necklace bling. Nobody really came out any better than the other. |
There was some of that, mainly references to white run diamond cartels that buy up all the diamonds and squirrel them away to keep demand high and supply low, so I guess the africans on the movie had no choice but to recruit elementary school boys as gunmen and run around shooting people randomly and chopping off their arms.  However I still thought the movie was an amusing action movie, politics aside. I have always thought of the lead white actor as a kind of a sissy boy (although he was good as Howard Hughes). There were some good shoot outs and they did have the right ARs circa 1994 when the movie took place. What's his name handled the pistol and carbine shooting pretty well. Good movie to rent when it comes around on netflix at least. |
White mercenaries, former South Arfica army. Some of the "officers" had ARs with fixed carry handles, aimpoints on the carry handles and some kind of light attached to the barrel. Seemed logical that the higher ups would have tricked out m-4ish carbines instead of AKs. Some of the white mercenaries also carried AKs. The black africans all had aks. There were lots of aks. What's his name the actor had some kind of Glock in the beginning, that he lost, and then had what I think was some kind of HK USP for the rest of the movie. |
| Aimless, DiCaprio had a baby Glock (a 26 I am sure) in the beginning. The movie took place in 1999, although I note that ARs didn't advance too much in those five years. I was surprised to see SA mercs with ARs--I woulda figured FALs and R4s would be more their style. I wonder how Executive Outcomes (who I am sure that groups is based on) rolled in real life. |
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I saw it tonight, it was extremely good in my opinion. call me what you want, but writing off the entire movie as "PC Bullshit" is unfair. Conflict diamonds are a real problem, and fighting them, like many of the worlds ills, is never an easy task in the face of human nature. but I will say this: there was once a Soviet Union, there was once a Berlin Wall.  ETA: There was ONE scene in the film that forced me to control my gag reflex however--Danny Archer and Solomon Vandy are heading through a village that the RUF had hit (Vandy is on the trail of his son, Archer is reluctantly following because he needs Vandy to tell him where the stone is), and they come upon an old man. He and Vandy talk in some tribal language, and the old man tells Vandy "It's a good thing we don't have oil. If we had oil we'd be in real trouble". WTF? I thought to myself "Old man, if you had oil, we'd have hired EO to take care of your shithole countries ourselves and you wouldn't be in this mess".  But other than that it was good--lot's of guns. |
Already done. Connelly has already made a PSA for Amnesty International (with whom she has been politically involved for at least a couple years now) about conflict diamonds. She also did a spot for Bulgari stating that the diamond earings she was wearing were certified by Bulgari to be "conflict free." I used to be a huge fan of her, but she is just starting to piss me off with her political crap, especially her attacks on "American consumerism." This coming from a woman who drives a Range Rover HSE to the store while wearing clothes that cost more than my whole wardrobe. |
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Nope, this didn't seem like a "it's all the white mans fault" movie at all... Solomon even remarked that the white man was just creating the market, but it was the africans choosing to kill each other. Good flick, but I still found the mercs carring Post-Ban AR's annoying as shit
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I didn't see it and won't. Looks like what others have said: the current PC rage. Dicrapio blew his talent load playing Howard Hughes and the kid in This Boy's Life. If Hollywood pukes really think they're the cutting edge of changing the world, then why don't they start wearing jewelry made out of recycled plastics? |
| This movie rocked. I hate DiCaprio but I real liked him in this as Archer. As for weapons used AJ Venter wrote a book called War Dogs that deals with EO in Siera Leone and even has a guy in it named Archer.The b0ok shows the Hind and personal weapons used. I see no m16s just AKs and G3 as well as RPG. andMAG58s. I liked the stat at the end of the movie about billions worth of diamonds coming out of Liberia yet they have no diamond mines. |
Just watched it last night! Bit preachy in places, but good over all......  His character had a really ruthless streak running through him and I found it quite weird how easily people were "found" throughout the film. The only other film I enjoyed of De Caprio's was his was "Catch Me If You Can"...... |