THURSDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

SLEDGE HAMMER!

Looks like we are going to get another LETHAL WEAPON movie...

I began losing interest in the LETHAL WEAPON series when director Richard Donner began using a sledgehammer to force his political beliefs down my throat. Even though LETHAL WEAPON 2 had all kinds of anti-apartheid posters and scenes with anti-apartheid protestors, those things fit because the story was about an Ambassador (from South Africa) who was using his diplomatic immunity to get away with murder - amongst other crimes. Still, the posters *everywhere* got to be tiring. When we get to the third or fourth film, and there's this huge poster in the Los Angeles Police Department that says "Fur Is Murder!" well, that's just taking things way too far. Show me the police department that would allow some political poster on their wall! I don't want people to tell me what to think... Even if it's what I already think! Even if he has the exact same opinion as I do, I don't want to hear it! I don't go to the movies to hear sermons. I want to be entertained.

Wait, aren't we supposed to be making movies that are *about something*? That make some sort of point? Shouldn't we try to make films that change the world? Yes! But we shouldn't ever jump on some soap box and make a speech - our job is to be subtle and slightly subversive. To show instead of telling. To use our stories to *demonstrate* our points so that we never have to come out and say it... let alone make some long-winded political speech or plaster posters with slogans all over the background of a scene.

BLOOD DIAMOND is an amazing movie because it offers both good and bad examples of how to make a political or social point on film. It's almost as if it is two films fighting each other. Director Ed Zwick has never been a subtle director - his Denzel Washington film THE SIEGE is one damned speech after another. In another tip I theorized that this began as a script about Djimon Hounsou's character... but there are no Black African stars in Hollywood (though, I have to tell you - Hounsou *is* a movie star whether Hollywood thinks so or not) - so someone called in the rewrite monkeys to add a white movie star (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a love interest for him (the white guy, not the African guy) played by the always hot Jennifer Connelly and now the story isn't about an African guy in Africa, it's about a white guy and a hot, sexy American journalist and how the two of them solve all of Africa's problems and are really more important than the African guy who the story is about.

So the part of the movie about Hounsou usually does a great job of *demonstrating* its point, while DiCaprio and Connelly trade heavy handed speeches.

The film gets off to a great start, with Hounsou's son about to leave for his first day at school - afraid of leaving his family... even for a few hours. He'd rather hang around with his fisherman father and help mend the nets. They have a great relationship, and a minute later we delve even deeper into their relationship when Dad walks his son home from school and the kid is exploding with joy after learning all kinds of things. Dad is proud... and teases him about keeping him home tomorrow to mend nets with him. Then Hounsou spots a truckload of armed soldiers on the road to his village, and the joking around stops. Hounsou and his son race to the village, where they attempt to rescue his wife and their daughter from the armed men. Very much the same set up as APOCALYPTO - and we feel the same emotional tug as a man's family are put in peril. Because we *experience* the sudden violence and lack of basic safety, it touches us on an emotional level.

His family escapes, but Hounsou is captured.... and the soldiers prepare to chop off his arms so that he won't be able to fight them. The machete swings up, then... the lead soldier realizes that Hounsou might be of better use in the diamond mines. Where he'll need those arms. So Hounsou is sent to this hell-hole work farm right out of a 1930s chain gang movie. Prisoners who work too slow are punished. Workers who take a break are punished. You can't even take a piss without permission - and then an armed guard stands nearby ready to kill you if you decide to make a run for it. They are digging through a mucky pond for diamonds - it's muddy and awful. One prisoner finds a diamond and tries to hide it... and they shoot him dead. Instead of having someone say, "Don't try to steal a diamond, they'll kill you" it is *demonstrated*. We see what happens. When Hounsou finds a huge diamond, we're on the edge of our seats when he decides to try and hide it from the guards. He buries it - is discovered - and has to fight for his life. All of this during a battle between rebels and soldiers over the diamond mine.

Hounsou escapes with his life, ends up in a city, working as a bellhop. Wondering where his wife and children are...

And that's when smuggler Leonardo DiCaprio and journalist Jennifer Connelly show up, and the speeches begin. She has speeches about the evils of "conflict diamonds" and exploiting a third world country and how the world doesn't care if Africans kill each other as long as American brides can show off their diamond wedding rings. DiCaprio gets to make counter speeches about how diamonds are the only way any of these people can ever escape poverty and... well, who really cares? One of the funniest aspects of this film is that whenever anyone climbs up on a soapbox to give a speech about the evils of smuggling or how the world doesn't care what happens in Africa or... well, there are no shortage of speeches... a carload of rebels skids round the corner firing machine guns that force the speechmaker to dive behind the closest burned out car for cover. After a while, it becomes a game - how long will the speech go on before the car load of rebels skids around the corner?

SPOILERS

But the film still packs a punch due to the Hounsou story - the scenes where we *experience* the problems in Africa instead of having some white people discuss them. Hounsou's son has been kidnaped and is being trained to become a child soldier. His evolution from bright eyed kid to cold eyed killer is frightening. Though this was handled better in the Argentine movie PAPER DOVE (entirely about child soldiers), this film pulls no punches when it comes to how callous these kids can become. When everyone around you dies, and the world is an endless bloody war, it is easy to become part of that war. One of the characters notes that the word "infantry" comes from the practice of using children to fight wars.

Hounsou's wife and daughter have been taken to a refugee camp, and one of the most powerful scenes in the film has Hounsou arrive at the camp to look for them... and there are a million people in the camp. Thousands of tents. Millions of faces. Impossible to find his family among all of these people! Again - demonstration. When he looks through the chain-link fence at all of the people - looking for faces that he recognizes - we are also looking for his wife and daughter in that sea of people. The number of people displaced and living in tents does more to make us understand than any speech could have.

By using these elements as *part of the story* we experience them. A good screenplay uses the story itself to make its point by putting the characters that we identify with into situations... so that we feel their pain. When Hounsou finally spots his wife and daughter through the chain-link fence, it's a great moment. A big emotional moment.

There's also a great scene at an orphanage filled with little children who have been maimed in the war - and a heartbreaking moment with a child whose arms were cut off. Though there's a speech going on in the background, you don't even hear it - the kid gets our full attention.

Later in the story, Hounsou comes upon his soldier son... and the film doesn't pull any punches. That's one of the other things about the film that works well - characters you care about get killed. From DiCaprio's bartender best friend to a kind-hearted school teacher... to characters who get star billing. This is a war movie where it's not just un-named extras who die sudden, violent deaths. Of course, there's one character who manages to get a speech off while they are dying (for about ten minutes). But the film works more often than not - thanks to Hounsou's story thread (and great acting). I wish the film was all about him and left out the DiCaprio and Connelly characters - focusing on the people disrupted by the war, rather than the folks on the sidelines who are really only there to make speeches and make a buck (for all of the Connelly character's self-righteousness - she's making a buck by exposing the evils of blood diamonds.

So gang, to jump up on this soapbox and give you the moral of the story: let your story make your point, and save the speeches for Oscar night... Yikes! Here comes a car load of rebels!

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READY TO BREAK IN?

THE BUISINESS SIDE

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