Lenient

Probably a stupid title for reviewing 2 very dissimilar movies - Rush Hour 3 and Blood Diamond... The reason I chose to review them together is because I decided to be lenient with them as far as their rating goes (ie a half star upgrade)... But I will try to balance this out by reviewing them in more "harsh" way.

RH3

The reason for being lenient with RH3, is because it "saves" it self by the 3 or 4 Chris Tucker one-liners that are really very effective and funny. Sample: after telling off an overweight woman because she is fat her reply is that its because she has a thyroid problem - Tucker' s response: so stop eating thyroids... Its more effective in the movie than by reading it...


Entertaining as the RH3 movie may be it underestimates it's viewer's intelligence by dishing out A LOT of implausibilities and a stupid ending... These type of movies, I know, are not meant to be taken that seriously but than again why waste your brain cells and time on a movie that is repetitive, recycles jokes from its previous installments and is cliched to the bone (the prudent, American-hater, smoker French-guy - the sexy female protagonist that is "forced" into action - the misfit cop-partners, their angry sergeant and the list can go on and on...).

Recommendable only for killing time (which it actually does quite literally) for an afternoon that you have nothing better to do - at least you'll laugh a bit despite the fact that a feeling that you saw this again and again in the past will be lingering..


Blood Diamond * * * *


Another movie, that I enjoyed, but found flawed was Blood Diamond - an upgraded 4* film. Like other Edward Zwick movies (The Last Samurai, The Legends of the Fall, Glory) this is an entertaining melodrama with very good acting but... flawed. Through the years I find my self becoming more and more cynical and agreeing with the more austere professional critics in some matters. And I'll explain: the movie "covers" its politics and issues it wants to raise (diamond smuggling) in an 2-sided way but feels manipulative in the way it builds the relationship of the 2 protagonists (DiCaprio and Hounsou). DiCaprio is the badass, with an ugly past street-wise (or better jungle-wise) smuggler and Hounsou is the naive, good-hearted black man that is forced in the proceedings because he knows the whereabouts of a large diamond... The two go on this journey were the usual thing happens - ie the bad guy gets "soften" by his good-hearted companion. This is not handled in the most subtle way as montages of their building friendship also include a scene were DiC slips from a rock loosing his balance and Hounsou is there to offer his hand to pull him up... And this scene is preceded by a scene of intense conflict between the two... All this amounts to a very leading way of telling a story - pushing the viewer to "swallow" what is going on with all the dramatic peaks in the story "dressed" in an over-dramatic score and a feating melodramatic ending...

Non-the-less these melodramatic scenes, and key moments of the story (were we learn more about the character's past, how smuggling takes place and the ending) are virtuously acted by DiC proving that he is one of the best actors of his generation (also consider his performances in his Scorsese collaborations). A crowd-pleaser at its heart this movie (blessed with charismatic acting like all of Zwick's films) will not fail to entertain and be thought-provoking at the same time, a difficult task that although could have been handled more masterfully it does succeed at both frontiers which is more than can be said for any other teen-oriented multi-plex mega-movie... Highly recommended (but not for the cynical viewer).