On DVD

SHERRYBABY, written and directed by Laurie Collyer, 95 minutes, rated R.

Laurie Collyer’s “Sherrybaby” stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as an ex-con and recovering heroin addict struggling to put her life together in spite of a self-destructive streak threatening to knock her down.

Released last September, it’s another solid, involving movie that didn’t make it to the Bangor market, with theaters instead choosing to show the worst movie of 2006, “The Wicker Man,” which was released on the same date.

Some will never forget that “The Wicker Man” is the film in which Nicolas Cage dons a bear suit and dances in his own little parade of death while Ellen Burstyn, in her fright wig and Braveheart makeup, wends around beehives and conspires to burn Cage’s character alive. It’s a horrendous movie, though those who decide which films are shown here nevertheless thought it best reflected the tastes and the intellect of the area.

Readers can take from that what they wish – an insult is a fine place to start. The good news is that while we still lack even one screen in the area devoted to new movies that stand outside the mainstream, there is always DVD, on which “Sherrybaby” recently was released.

From Collyer’s own script, the film features Gyllenhaal in a performance that’s as raw and as affecting as Ryan Gosling’s Academy Award-nominated turn in “Half Nelson,” in which he played a middle-school teacher also brought down by drugs.

“Sherrybaby” is more content to ride the rails of formula, but not sentiment, which it resists, likely because Collyer is best known as a documentarian. Following suit, her movie has a charged air of edgy realism, with Gyllenhaal’s intense portrayal as Sherry Swanson key to achieving that end.

Much of the movie is a balancing act, with Sherry trying to stay clean while finding a job (she lands one at a day care, through questionable means) and attempting to reconnect with her young daughter, Alexis (Ryan Simpkins), who has been raised for the past three years by Sherry’s brother Bobby (Brad Henke) and sister-in-law Lynette (Bridget Barkan). Lynette doesn’t want to let go of Alexis, which creates a tense struggle of wills between herself and Sherry that’s heightened because of all they leave unsaid.

This is, after all, a family that buries its emotions, which is underscored in a subplot involving Sherry’s father (Sam Bottoms). While there’s nothing new in the layers of dysfunction the movie peels away, there’s nevertheless something exciting in the fearlessness with which Gyllenhaal tackles the role – she’s unhinged.

Her power comes from Sherry’s biting silences; she can dismantle you with a stare. And yet as tough as Sherry is in some scenes, her failing battle with addiction and the love she fears her daughter won’t return to her complicates her character and the movie admirably.

Just as she did in the dark, sadomasochistic comedy “Secretary,” Gyllenhaal raises her share of eyebrows here, though for a whole host of different reasons.

Grade: B+

On DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray disc

BLOOD DIAMOND, directed by Edward Zwick, written by Charles Leavitt, 138 minutes, rated R.

Edward Zwick’s “Blood Diamond” is a movie about the blood violence, enslavement of adults and children, and mass murder involved in the business of mining diamonds in Sierra Leone so that fingers, necks and ears can look pretty elsewhere.

Set in 1999 during Sierra Leone’s civil war, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Danny Archer, a South African diamond smuggler hustling jewels across the border to Liberia, which buys them for sale on the open market, thus allowing the army to purchase arms for their war.

It’s this army that’s responsible for pillaging villages and slaughtering most of its inhabitants. Those who are allowed to live are the fittest men, who are forced at gunpoint to sift the rivers for diamonds, as well as young boys, who are brainwashed into becoming killing machines.

When the army storms into one village and divides fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) from his family, the plot contrives to nudge him toward Archer, who wants the 100-carat diamond Vandy found (and hid) while working in the fields. Trouble is, Archer isn’t the only person who wants that diamond. Everyone does, which generates much of the film’s manufactured conflict as the story unfolds.

Smoldering in a romantic subplot is Jennifer Connelly’s Maddy Bowen, an idealistic journalist who believes that if people knew the brutality with which some diamonds are obtained, they wouldn’t buy them. So, yes, she’s annoyingly naive, though her hopes are high for Archer to find his conscience and come through with the facts she needs to tell her story to the world – and thus, she believes, to change it.

What ensues is a beautifully shot movie with a terrific score by James Newton Howard that’s sunk by formula and a bloated running time. It wants to be a political heavyweight that shakes people to take note of another side of Africa (as the movie notes, one’s bling really is one’s bling-bang), but since so much of it is overly familiar and predictable, none of it gels in a way that grips, surprises or resonates.

That said, the Academy Award-nominated DiCaprio is very good here, nailing a difficult accent and capping a fine year (see him in “The Departed”), while Hounsou, once again typecast as the suffering face of Africa, digs deep to mine a fully realized character from Charles Leavitt’s two-dimensional script.

Grade: C+

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays and Fridays in Lifestyle, weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

The Video/DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? BDN film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Akeelah and the Bee – B+

Annapolis – C-

The Ant Bully – B+

Babel – A-

Basic Instinct 2 – D+

Batman Beyond: Season Three – B+

Big Fish BLU-RAY – B

The Black Dahlia – C-

Blood Diamond- C+

Borat – B+

Cars – C

Casino Royale – A

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 – C-

Chicken Little BLU-RAY – C-

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – A

Clerks II – B+

The Covenant – D

Crank – B+

Curious George – B

Date Movie – D-

The DaVinci Code – C+

The Departed – A

The Descent – B+

The Devil Wears Prada – B+

Double Indemnity – A

Employee of the Month – C

Failure to Launch – C-

Fast Food Nation – B-

Finding Neverland BLU-RAY – C

Flushed Away – B+

Flyboys – C-

Freedomland – C-

Friends with Money – B

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties – C+

The Gridiron Gang – C+

The Grudge 2 – D-

Half Nelson – A-

A History of Violence – A

The Holiday – C+

Hollywoodland – C

The Illusionist – B+

Infamous – B+

Inside Man – B+

Invincible – B

Jackass Number Two – B

Junebug – A

Justice League Unlimited: Season Two – B+

Kinky Boots – B+

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – B+

Last Holiday – B

The Libertine – D

Little Miss Sunshine – B+

Lucky Number Slevin – B

The Marine – C+

Match Point – A

Miami Vice – C

Mission Impossible III – C-

Monster House – B+

Munich – A-

My Super Ex-Girlfriend – A-

North Country – C

The Omen – B-

Open Season – B

Over the Hedge – B

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – B-

Poseidon – B

A Prairie Home Companion – C

The Prestige – B+

Rocky Balboa – B+

Running with Scissors – C+

Shakespeare Behind Bars – A-

Sherrybaby – B+

Shut Up & Sing – A-

16 Blocks – B

Slither – B

Snakes On A Plane – A-

Stay Alive – D-

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby – B

This Film is Not Yet Rated – B-

United 93 – A

The Wicker Man – BOMB

World Trade Center – A

X-Men: The Last Stand – B-