Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly
I will admit from the off, i’m not the biggest fan of Leonardo Di Caprio movie s generally but the subject matter of this intrigued me enough to watch it, and i’m very glad i did. It gave me a fascinating insight into a world unknown to me.
If anyone has seen a Blood Diamond trailer or even one of the posters you will have an idea of what its about. What am i saying? You can probably even guess just from the title!
Anyway, enough waffling… the film centres around the blood diamonds trade as its known in Africa. It is set in Sierra Leone in 1999. Groups of rebels roam the villages, raping, pillaging and taking the natives hostage to use them as slaves. Forcing them to dig muddy ponds for diamonds. If they do anything they are shot dead – no questions. It is a brutal regime. The main character is Solomon Vardy ( Djimon Hounsou) who is one of the captives, he comes across an absolutely massive and rare pink diamond which he stashes for himself.
He then teams up with Danny Archer (Leonardo Di Caprio) and with the help of Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) they go in search of the hidden treasure.
Its not the most action packed film but it is very engaging and they all do a good job of making you care for the characters. Its really makes you think about where your diamonds might be coming from, about 80% of the worlds diamonds are known as non conflict diamonds, the remaining 20% must add up to a lot that are obtained from these sort of routes. Tragic but true.
Director: Edward Zwick
Writer: Charles Leavitt
