Zwick Pulls at Social Conscience in Blood Diamond

Edward Zwick has displayed an uncanny knack of formulating a marriage between the collective consciousness of man, and whichever displaced, tortured or scorned sect of historical society fancies him. It's a formula that produced Oscar-winners like Glory, epics like The Last Samurai, and now a sweeping retrospective of the murderous diamond camps of Sierra Leone in the late 90s and early 2000s, Blood Diamond.

What the viewer needs to know first and foremost before entering into the film, is that they are going to have a choice. You can either ignore the plight of the African people (a plight, in different forms, that has been brought to light on the big screen of late through films like the striking Hotel Rwanda and the intense The Last King of Scotland) and embrace plot as your ally. This road helps ensure you being spared the barraging darts of guilt that some will undoubtedly feel for being so ignorant to such horrid indiscretions. Or, you could do what Zwick more than likely wants you to do -- learn.

In Blood Diamond , Leonardo DiCaprio plays Danny Archer, an African native who has seen more than his share of strife as a mercenary soldier. In Sierra Leone, he attempts to smuggle what are referred to as "conflict" diamonds to Liberia, where they can then be sold to a massive English corporate diamond syndicate. After being caught for smuggling, he learns of the existence of what is found to be a 100 karat diamond, which brings in the incomparable Djimon Hounsou, who plays Solomon, a man separated from his family and forced to work for the R.U.F. (Revolutionary United Front) in the diamond fields where he discovers the rock in question and hides it during an attack by governmental soldiers.

Determined to find his family, Solomon and Archer form an unlikely, somewhat disturbing but altogether altruistic team. They are countered by an evil Colonel from the R.U.F. and Archer's former mentor, and are forced to race time and for their lives back to the camp where the diamond is buried while civil war wages indiscriminately along their route.