Blood Diamond (2007)

Directed By: Edward Zwick
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Kagiso Kuypers, Arnold Vosloo, David Harewood, Benu Mabhena, Anointing Lukola, Jimi Mistry, Michael Sheen, Marius Weyers, Basil Wallace
Released: 19-01-2007

Blood Diamond is your average action thriller with a conscience made all the more enjoyable by the great performances on show. Jennifer Connelly is a reporter struggling with the limitations her work can make, looking for that smoking gun. Djimon Hounsou is an African native whose hopes and desires are wrapped up in his young son and Leonardo Dicaprio is a Rhodesian smuggler who realised long ago that most battles are fought not for freedom but for power.

Edward Zwick who borught us The Last Samurai is on directing duties here and there’s not really anything to right home about. Africa is a beautiful continent and you only have to point a camera and it looks beautiful regardless. The action sequences are fast, fluid and build the tension though there is never a sense of impending danger. Additionally to this though the horrors of civil war are never really exposed and there is a lack of discomfort at what we are watching. This could simply be an over saturation in recent years of this type of cinema. Or, that those characters exposed to the crimes are never given a chance to develop or connect with the audience. The only exception to this, and the moral centre of the story is Djimon Hounsou as Solomon. His performance is mesmerising and equal in every way to Dicaprio’s who proves once again that is perhaps the best actor of his generation.
The key to the enjoyment of this film derives from the pace. We meet Hounsou at home, happy with his family, getting his son ready for his 5km walk to school. When we next see them, within minutes they are running for their lives from rebels. Though Solomon is able to save his family (wife and three children) he can not save himself and is captured and shipped off to work in the mountains searching for diamonds. A series of brutal and inhumane acts highlight his plight, and the danger disobedience will get him. It’s not long before Solomon has been fortunate, or unfortunate depending on perspective, enough to find the largest uncut diamond anyone has seen. Taking his chances and fortunate enough to be saved by the military he is imprisoned. Also sharing a cell is Leonardo’s Danny Archer, imprisoned himself for smuggling diamonds over the border.
A series of events thrust Archer and Solomon together, one providing the other with what they need; for Archer it’s the diamond, for Solomon his family

Along the way they acquire help from Jennifer Connelly’s Maddy Bowen. Looking for a great story and seeing it in Archer she latches onto them. Inevitably an irrelevant if commendably love subplot develops between Archer and Maddy despite neither of them having much in common. Fortunately the script is aware that Solomon is the heart of the story and so we never venture too far away from what drives him. As we move toward the somewhat predictable, yet no less satisfying climax, the film almost falls into sentimentality but Zwick keeps a tight hold of the reins and only allows for a moment of redemption before the closing few scenes.

The film attempts to make a strong political statement about the nature of blood diamonds and wraps it in a Hollywood popcorn joy ride. This should be commended rather than lauded as it means that a larger audience will understand the trade and its affects on the African people and also get a glimpse of how the whole illegal industry work. If this film entertains and raises questions about were the diamond in that beautiful necklace you’ve always wanted comes from, then it will have been a success.

A politically motivated action romp closer to Indiana Jones than The Interpreter but nonetheless entertaining. If only all action thrillers could be this well acted and entertaining with a genuine message about the world to deliver. . It a credit to both the producers and DiCaprio that the central star would be an ambiguous character who is closer to the bad guys, actually working for them, than your traditional hero or anti-hero giving the film a greater edge than your usual political thriller.