Blood Diamond

Rating: R16 - Depicts Graphic & Realistic War Scenes.
Duration: 143 mins.
Genre: Action & Adventure.
Actors: Michael Sheen, Jennifer Connelly, Arnold Vosloo, Djimon Hounsou, Jimi Mistry, Stephen Collins, Leonardo DiCaprio, Basil Wallace, Marius Weyers, Ato Essandoh, Kasigo Kuypers.
Director: Edward Zwick.
Release Date: Available Now.

Synopsis
Set during Sierra Leone's bloody civil war in 1999, the paths of Danny Archer, a diamond smuggler and Solomon, a local fisherman cross and Danny sees a quick way to early retirement…

The Reality
Blood Diamond is one of those rare movies that does three things. It entertains you, makes you think about what’s going on and challenges you to change the way you live.

Some people might come away from the movie and question how such a violent movie could ever be called entertainment, but they’d be missing the point; movies are entertainment, it’s up to us (primarily) or the directors (rarely) to make something more out of the movie experience.

With Blood Diamond even the most cynical movie goer will realise that something is wrong with the way the world operates after witnessing the brutality of this fictional tale of Solomon and his journey to find his son.

During Sierra Leone's civil war, the RUF (Revolution United Front, the rebel army) decided that because the Government was going to allow the people to use their right hand to vote, they would go from village to village, killing people or cutting off their right hands.

Solomon and his family are lucky, he manages to help his family escape but is captured himself, but because he is a fisherman, his strong physique makes him useful to the rebels, and they force him to work in a diamond mine.

One day he finds and incredibly rare and valuable blood diamond and miraculously manages to hide it.

What he doesn’t know however is that on their journey to the refugee camps, his wife and daughter get separated from their only son, who is grabbed by the rebels and inducted into their child army.

When government forces attack the mining camp, Solomon is captured and put in prison where he meets up with Danny, who promises to help him find his family in return for the location of the Blood Diamond.

The problem is its people like Danny who are helping the rebels, through smuggling arms for diamonds. The rebels use the diamonds to buy guns then steals the children to fight for their cause.

It’s a vicious circle, without the diamonds, the conflict may never have started, but Sierra Leone would be a poor country.

Blood Diamond manages to show with extreme clarity the destructive nature of greed, on all levels. Though without wanting to give away too much, the movie does offer up a decent serving of hope by the end of the story.

Food for thought
Who’s paying for your easy life?

Special Features:
• Director’s Commentary
• Theatrical Trailer
• Blood on the Stone (50m) – Follow the path of a diamond from the ground to the store.
• Becoming Archer – A profile of Leonardo DiCaprio and how he trained for the war.
• Journalism on the Front Line – Jennifer Connelly on Women Journalists at war.
• Inside the Siege of Freetown (– See how Ed Zwick tackled the pivotal scene.
• Music Video, “Shine On Em” by Nas

I’ve yet to watch all of the special features on this two disc special edition, but I can say that one you have to watch is Blood on the Stone, a budget documentary that goes to Sierra Leone to see if anything really has changed in the world of illegal diamonds.