Blood Diamond -- Review

Blood Diamond (2006) is a violent and disturbing film. It features Oscar nominated Leonardo DiCaprio as a "Rhodesian" soldier of fortune and diamond smuggler named Danny Archer. DiCaprio plays his character well -- a man without a conscience who in the end does what is right. Archer always answers Rhodesian as his nationality, rather than Zimbabwean. But according to the plot line, he had gone to South Africa and served in the white run South African Army -- fighting in Angola. Now he works for a retired South African colonel in his operations.

The other star player in this is another Oscar nominated actor Djimon Hounsou as a fisherman from Sierra Leone named Solomon Vandy. Vandy is a simple man with great hopes for the future. His young son is an inquisitive and precocious student, who envisions a day when his nation will be a paradise. That dream turns into a nightmare when rebels shoot up his village and separates father and family. The son is eventually captured and turned into a child-soldier.

The movie tells the story of how greed becomes the foundation for misery. We watch as diamond exporters milk a revolution to keep diamond prices high, while smugglers make money on the diamonds they smuggle out of Sierra Leone, on the guns they sell to the "rebels," and the support they sell to the government. The rebels for their part seem less interested in reforming governments and governing a country than in inflicting mayhem, largely by turning young boys, like Solomon's son, into drug influenced killers.

The other main character is an American journalist named Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) whose search for a story ultimately penetrates Archer's soul and ultimately aids the reunification of Solomon and his family and tells the story of the Diamond industry's complicity.

Sierra Leone's civil war has ended, but the effects on a country and a continent remain present. Having watched Hotel Rwanda and the Last King of Scotland, we see how devastating colonialism was. Whatever western influence was learned, it was negative not positive. Greed not freedom and democracy were the ideologies that were learned. A quote from the movie that gives this some meaning was made by a rebel, about to cut off the hands of one of the captured villagers -- "It was the Belgians that first cut off hands." King Leopold has left Africa with a most bitter legacy!

This isn't a movie for the faint of heart, but it is worth viewing, as a reminder if nothing else of our ability to wreak havoc on our neighbors.

By the way, both Oscar nominated performances were well earned.