It's not that Leonardo DiCaprio hasn't played characters of dubious morality or sanity before, but even fans of his check-kiter in Catch Me If You Can and his looney billionaire in The Aviator will be in for a shock come Blood Diamond: his Danny Archer, Rhodesian soldier of fortune, is scary, in a tough, masculine, totally forceful way. Even more so than his conflicted cop of The Departed [my review], Archer is DiCaprio's arrival as a genuinely grown-up actor. As recently as 2002's Catch Me, the then nearly 30-year-old actor could get away with portraying a teenager, but just a couple of years -- and, it seems, some bulking-up workouts -- have given the actor a new gravitas, one that smashes the impression he made as an actual teenager of a potent screen presence but in portrayals of far more fragile characters.

DiCaprio's two films this year signal, it seems, a deliberate attempt to recreate himself as an actor, and he succeeds so powerfully in Blood Diamond that it's stunning. Archer is coldly vicious, bordering on psychopathic, and DiCaprio sells it: there's no sense of a Hollywood actor pretending for the camera -- he feels like the real deal. His intensity here reminds me of another performer who commands the screen with cocky ease, one I never imagined I'd liken DiCaprio to: Russell Crowe.

All the little girls still in love with the tender, sensitive Leo of Titanic will be scandalized, I'm sure. All the big girls, though -- who appreciate the talent it takes to create a complicated character like Archer, make him compelling, and keep him just this side of thoroughly unlikeable -- will be delighted.

And it's not just DiCaprio trying to rock his teenybopper fan base. Tobey Maguire takes a turn for the very dark in The Good German as an American soldier in postwar Berlin who takes advantage of every illegal opportunity -- and every desperate person -- the devastated city has to offer. Maguire has made more of a point than DiCaprio lately of taking on only quirky and unconventional characters -- even his Peter Parker (aka Spider-Man) has an unexpected edge -- but, as with DiCaprio, "charming" has perhaps been the one word that has best characterized his screen persona. No more, not after this. Here, Maguire turns his charm into something oozing, a deliberate false face on a cruel and selfish heart -- it's a performance even more daring than DiCaprio's in some ways, one seemingly intent on wiping forever from our minds all thoughts of Maguire as anything soft or pleasant or boyish. If it takes a punch in the face, Maguire seems to say, to make us see him as an adult, so be it, and here it is.

And will that pugnacity carry over to Spider-Man 3? Looks like it might ... and I'm just fine with that. Shades of gray are always more interesting than black and white.

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