Leonardo DiCaprio has made several movies that he’s received good reviews for during his career. I have seen several of those movies and have enjoyed them to some degree. Earlier this year I was very impressed with his performance in The Departed. Not long after seeing that movie, I started to see trailers for his next movie, Blood Diamond. The trailers looked very interesting to me and I decided to see the movie.

The small African country of Sierra Leone was torn apart by a civil war in 1999, with the government and rebels both hoping to gain control of the country’s diamond mines. Solomon Vandy was a fisherman living in a small village with his family. Rebels attacked the village one day and captured Solomon, taking him off to work in the diamond mines. He found a pink diamond and managed to hide it. The rebels attacked again, this time taking several young boys, including Solomon’s son Dia, and forcing them to join their cause.

Danny Archer was selling guns for diamonds when he was arrested for smuggling. He managed to learn about the diamond Solomon found and started planning how he could get it and sell it. Danny offered to help Solomon find his family in return for the diamond. Maddy Bowen was a journalist in the country working on a story about the diamond trade. She wanted information from Danny for a story and ended up agreeing to help find Solomon’s family. Danny and Solomon headed off to find the diamond with Solomon being determined to find Dia.

Blood Diamond had a fairly complicated plot. When the movie was first starting, it did take a little while to establish everything that was going on. It wasn’t clear at first how things with Solomon and Danny would connect, but it really didn’t take too long to show how everything was connected. Information related to the diamond trade was also woven into the plot throughout the movie, along with Maddy’s work on her story and Solomon’s search for his family. There was a lot going on in the movie, so viewers really do need to pay attention so they can keep track of everything and not get confused.

I thought that Blood Diamond was a very good, entertaining movie. It wasn’t a happy, feel good movie though. This was a very serious movie without any humor. It dealt with a country being torn apart by a civil war and how the diamond trade was connected to the war. I had heard of conflict diamonds before, but I hadn’t known what they were before seeing this movie. I also hadn’t known that there was so much violence and death connected to diamonds in some areas. The movie did deal with some very upsetting things and certain scenes could be very difficult for some people to watch.

Blood Diamond had some action sequences without making the movie action packed. The action scenes were well done and helped to keep things interesting. There was also violence in several scenes though the movie didn’t have non stop violence. There was really only violence in a few scenes. The violence that was in the movie was very graphic and could be too upsetting for some viewers. The rebels were vicious and didn’t care who they hurt, including women and children. They took children and forced them to do horrible things. They put the children in their army and trained them to be killers. The rebels even used some sort of drug to have stronger control over the children. It was difficult to see some of those scenes, especially the ones involving children using guns. The movie deserved the R rating it received and it is definitely not a movie for children of any age to see.

The movie revolved around Danny and Solomon and their connections to the diamond trade in Sierra Leone. They were two very different men that ended up working together. Solomon was a fisherman that worked hard to try to provide the best he could for his family. That was why he was willing to try hiding the diamond when he found it even though he knew the rebels would kill him if they found out what he did. Djimon Hounsou was very good in the part. He was believable as a man willing to risk everything for his family. Dia was Solomon’s young son. Dia was a good student before being taken by the rebels.

Danny had been a smuggler for years, dealing in diamonds. Much of his past remained a mystery, but a few things were slowly shared during the movie. Those few things did help to explain why Danny was the way he was. Danny had worked closely with Colonel Coetzee for many years and still had connections with him. Danny would try to spin any situation to help himself the most. He was far from a perfect character and had many flaws which did help to make him more believable and realistic. Danny went through a lot and did change by the end of the movie. Leonardo DiCaprio gave am amazing performance as Danny. I can see why he has been nominated for a Golden Globe for the role. I was also very impressed with his performance in The Departed earlier this year.

Colonel Coetzee had been a very strong influence on Danny for many years. The men still had a working relationship. Arnold Vosloo really didn’t have too much to do in the movie since the Colonel was only around in a few scenes. People might recognize him from his role as Imhotep in The Mummy movies. Maddy was a journalist looking to do a story on the diamond trade. She hoped to expose what was really going on with Danny’s assistance. She was focused on getting her story, but she did really care about what was going on and she wanted to do something about it. She didn’t approve of some things Danny did and wasn’t sure she could fully trust him. She did seem to have feelings for him and there were some hints that Danny returned the feelings as well. Jennifer Connelly handled the part well.

Main Cast

Jennifer Connelly - Maddy Bowen
Leonardo DiCaprio - Danny Archer
Djimon Hounsou - Solomon Vandy
Kagiso Kuypers - Dia Vandy
Arnold Vosloo - Colonel Coetzee

Edward Zwick - Director

Blood Diamond was one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It dealt with very serious, even upsetting things, so this isn’t a movie that everyone will like. I do think it is worth seeing, especially for fans of Leonardo DiCaprio.


Recommended: Yes