What does a diamond cost? (Blood Diamond (DVD))

Name: Ailran

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Product:	Blood Diamond (DVD)
Date:	24/06/07 (163 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great story, good action and acting

Disadvantages: A little too political in places

Sierra Leone, a few years ago, a country tormented by civil war. The RUF (Revolutionary United Front) wages war on anyone not in the cities. They raise money by kidnapping men to work in Diamond fields/mines and selling what they find to the western markets. The sale of ‘Blood Diamonds’ though is illegal (Blood diamonds are classified as such when they originate from a war torn, unstable country} so they need to be smuggled into a stable country before being able to be sold to the West. Danny Archer (DiCaprio) is an ex-mercenary who now works for diamond company interests by bringing them out of the country by any means he possibly can, and often buying them from the revolutionaries with weapons.

Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) is a Sierra Leone native, who is forcibly taken from his family by the RUF and forced to work digging for diamonds. All he wants to find is his family but what he does find is an enormous diamond that he hides away, burying it in the scorched earth of the war ravaged country.

After an attack on the mine by Government forces Solomon finds himself in a prison cell, alongside Danny. Hearing rumours of this giant diamond Danny befriends Solomon and offers to try and help him find his family. So begins their journey through the country, alongside a female reporter Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) looking for Solomon’s family, the diamond, respect, a story and the truth.

Blood Diamond is a great little adventure film. Mixing in old fashioned style derring do with a look into the politics of Africa, well as much as a film can do anyway.
A running line throughout the film is the characters stating, in time of bad luck, trouble and the like, ‘T.I.A’. TIA stands for This Is Africa and seems to be the African equivalent of $h!+ happens. Going by when and where it is used it is, or seems to be, how the Africans, especially the White Africans, explain any calamity that befalls them. It is almost a belief amongst them that Africa will get its own back on them somehow or other.

Blood Diamond is helped a lot by a great story, a mix of politics and action that shouldn’t really work but it concentrates on the action side for most of the running time and cleverly inserts bits of politics into the storyline to slow things down. This tactic not only leaves you enthralled by what is going on but horrified at the same time. How the RUF indoctrinate the child soldiers they recruit/kidnap is not a pretty sight, and made all the more appalling by the fact that you know child soldiers exist and that this is probably the way they really are treated. A scene with a group of 9-11 year old kids playing cards, drinking and swearing while fully armed with rifles is something that just shouldn’t exist in this world.

It is the scenes like that that pull Blood Diamond up above the conventional action thriller. That drags at your conscience as you realise how little the western world actually cares about the goings on over in Africa, unless it actually affects them.

DiCaprio is excellent, he went up in my estimation after The Departed and he keeps my admiration after this performance as well. Supposedly his accent isn’t very Rhodesian (as he tells us he is) but I would never have known, he sounded South African to me, having seen it with someone who knows the accents over there though I was told it wasn’t very good. Still as a South African accent it was good enough not to spoil my enjoyment.
More importantly from my point of view you could actually believe he was a hard-bitten, world-weary mercenary turned smuggler. If he couldn’t have pulled that off then the whole film would have fallen apart. Everything relies on the Archer character, his greed, his background and your belief in what he is capable of. DiCaprio makes you believe this, a great performance all round from him.

Hounsou on the other hand is left with a major character that has nowhere really to go. He wants his family back and that is it. He is all rage and anger throughout the film, as befits the character. It is a testament to his ability that this doesn’t get to be too annoying as the film progresses, but then maybe this is because he is pretty much justified in his anger all the way through!

Jennifer Connelly is good but her part is an uneven one, there isn’t really that much need for her at all and apart from her being crucial to a couple of scenes she is left high and dry most of the time.

The only other character to actually stand out at all was that of Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo). I like him as an actor, though best known for appearing in The Mummy (as the Mummy) he is capable of much more. I liked his character in this, even though his screen time was quite limited.

Blood Diamond is another film released this year that is one that shouldn’t be missed, a gripping story of a world we don’t really understand.

Summary: old fashioned action adventure with a difference