A Movie Review : Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond, the new film from Edward Zwick ( Glory and The Last Samurai) is an ambitious film that occasionally teeters but never topples under the weight of its subject. Focusing on fictional individual stories connected to the very real problem of “conflict diamonds” originating in Africa, Blood Diamond accepts that any non-African entertainment seeking to talk about the problems of Africa is going to struggle in communicating Africa objectively and in a non-patronizing tone. By choosing not to fight this battle, Blood Diamond succeeds inconveying a clear, compelling narrative with highly important political content without coming across as a political screed with the exception of a single scene, early on, that is so well edited and integrated into Blood Diamond's pacing, it’s hard not to forgive the filmmakers.

Blood Diamond focuses on Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a man whose family has been ripped apart by the civil war in Sierra Leone. Because he is strong when his village is destroyed he is sent to work at a diamond mine instead of having a hand cut off. His wife and two children escape, but his son, Dia (Caruso Kuypers) is recruited into the RUF’s children’s army. Vandy soon discovers a massive stone while mining and manages to hide it, and in a raid on the mine escapes only to wind up in prison where he meets Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a diamond smuggler from the former Rhodesia. As Blood Diamond unfolds Archer and Vandy find themselves in an unlikely alliance because that diamond is what Archer needs to stay alive and Vandy needs to find and rescue his family. Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) plays a reporter who in the name of getting her story on the economics of conflict diamonds and wanting both Archer and his connections, also assists them.