Blood Diamond

Movie Name - Blood Diamond
Year of Release - 2006
Director - Edward Zwick
Cast - Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Arnold Vosloo, Michael Sheen, Basil Wallace, Jimi Mistry

Set in 1999 in Sierra Leone, the movie begins with Solomon Vandy(Djimon Hounsou) trying to coax his son Dia to attend school. His son wanted to be a doctor when he grew up and was confident that the place would be a 'utopia' once the civil war was over. They are attacked by Revolutionary United Front(RUF) all of a sudden, and while Solomon's family manages to escape from their gunfire, Solomon is captured by RUF and forced to work in their mines. Parallelly, we are introduced to Daniel "Danny" Archer(Leonardo DiCaprio) who smuggles diamonds to the Liberia for export to other countries like United Kingdom and India.




 

While mining, Solomon manages to find a huge pink diamond . He tries to hide it and just when the diamond is discovered by Captain Poison(the tyrant supervisor of the mines), they are attacked by the government troops. He somehow hides it under the ground before being captured. Danny Archer was also in the same prison, imprisoned for smuggling diamonds to Liberia. He gets to hear about the pink diamond. He frees himself and Solomon. Solomon agrees to give Danny the diamond in return for getting his help on rescuing his son Dia, who was captured later by RUF while his wife and daughters were escaping. 








Sounds like a cliché plot, isn't it? While the plot is predictable and does get a little slow in the stretches especially when Maddy Bowen's(Jennifer Connelly) character is introduced, Djimon Hounsou and Leonardo DiCaprio inject a lot of life into the movie with their earnest performances and try their best to keep their performances subdued, although Leonardo DiCaprio's rather exaggerated Rhodesian accent might incite some belly hurting laughs from the audience. Arnold Vosloo, himself of Afrikan descent, does get the accent right though although his character is mostly reduced to a stock villain. Cinematographer Eduardo Serra does a fantastic job in juxtaposing the scenic beauty of Africa with the gritty and merciless violence inflicted by the rebel groups on the civilians. The action scenes are also well shot and quite tense and fast paced, with the highlight being the standoff between the government troops and RUF in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown with the civilians being rabbits caught in headlights. All in all, a perfect political action thriller to watch if you are looking for an adrenaline rush , along with some social commentary thrown in for tugging at your emotional heartstrings.
 
                                             FINAL RATING - 4.5/5