Blood Diamond (2006)

Director: Edward Zwick
Writer: Screenplay: Charles Leavitt Story: Charles Leavitt, C. Gaby Mitchell
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, Djimon Hounsou, Kagiso Kuypers, Michael Sheen
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller

Blood Diamond goes inside the dark side of diamonds from conflict countries like Sierra Leone in Africa where it takes place. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as 'Danny Archer', a former soldier and now a diamond smuggler chasing the score to get him away from the civil wars and blood-sheds of Africa. Djimon Hounsou is the second leading male as 'Solomon Vandy', the man separated from his family, captured by the rebel group RUF and made a slave working for them searching for diamonds in the mines. The third lead is Jennifer Connelly as the female journalist 'Maddy Bowen' looking to write a story about the diamond companies exploiting stones from conflict areas.

These three interacts in a quite well told story, working together while chasing their own angles. 'Archer' wants a huge diamond 'Vandy' found and hided as the government soldiers attacked the mines where he was held. 'Vandy' wants to find his family, including his son which was taken by RUF and made into a child soldier. 'Bowen' wants to get the info she needs from 'Archer' to write her story about the bloody diamond industry taking advantage of the war criminals using slaves and civil wars to get rich. All main actors does very well in this movie, and so does also a lot of those in smaller parts.

Not everything about this movie is especially original. We've seen the same kind of look at the cruelty of African civil wars in Hotel Rwanda only two years prior to this release. It doesn't make Blood Diamond any less of a viewing experience, maybe especially considering how we in the west spend diamonds without thoughts of how they got here. We get to touch on Africa and the wars from several entries, as their different priorities and cynicism differs. It's not quite crafted well enough between the parts of human interest, action and change, but it's no doubt a movie well worth its runtime. I have a couple of other objections against the creative parts of the movie as well, but I'll keep those to myself as I'd like to keep it as spoiler-free as usual.