World Famous Comics: Blood Diamond (Full Screen Edition)
Blood Diamond (Full Screen Edition)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Kagiso Kuypers, Arnold Vosloo Directed By: Edward Zwick Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: March 20, 2007 Running Time: 143 minutes Theatrical Release Date: December 08, 2006
Description: An ex-mercenary turned smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio). A Mende fisherman (Djimon Hounsou). Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside. Directed by Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai), this urgent, intensely moving adventure shapes gripping human stories and heart-pounding action into a modern epic of profound impact.
Amazon.com: Leonardo DiCaprio puts a handsome face on an ugly industry: In parts of Africa, diamond mining fuels civil warfare, killing thousands of innocents and drafting preteen children as vicious soldiers. DiCaprio (The Departed) plays Danny Archer, a white African soldier-turned-diamond-smuggler who gets wind of a large raw jewel found by Solomon Vandy, a native fisherman (Djimon Hounsou, In America) recently escaped from enslavement by a brutal rebel leader. Archer offers a deal: He'll help Vandy find his war-scattered family if Vandy will share the diamond with him. Drawn into this web of exploitation is journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly, Little Children), who agrees to help if Archer will tell her the details of how conflict diamonds make their way into the hands of the corporations who sell them to the Western world. DiCaprio is compelling because he never flinches from Archer's utter ruthlessness; Archer ends up doing the morally justifiable thing, but only because his desperate greed has led him to it. Hounsou and Connelly, though saddled with all the moral and political speeches, rise above the cant and keep the movie's treacherously formulaic plot rooted in human characters. But in the end, the story won't stick with you as much as the dead stillness in the child soldiers' eyes; the horror of African civil strife refuses to be contained by Blood Diamond's uplifting message--and the movie is all the more potent as a result. --Bret Fetzer
Diamonds Are Forever Blemished "In America, it's bling bling. But out here, it's bling bang."
So says diamond hound Danny Archer, summing up in two sentences the vastly differing attitudes between American capitalism and third-world uprising in director Edward Zwick's (The Last Samurai) five-time Academy Award-nominated composition on greed, anarchy and its resulting desolation. "Blood Diamond" is a violently epic film, one that takes a cold hard look at the diamond trade and unveils the heinous business that is behind the acquisition of these dazzling coveted stones.
Solomon Vandy (Hounsou) is a humble fisherman of the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone who has high hopes for his son Dia to become a doctor. When his home village of Shenge is pillaged by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), he is taken prisoner and forced to work in the diamond fields to fund the radical group's arsenal. While panning in a riverbed, Solomon unearths a rare pink diamond of grand proportion and rather than surrender it to the despicable Captain Poison (Harewood), he conceals it and later buries it in an unmarked location.
Danny Archer (DiCaprio), another in a long line of profiteers, is a covert agent for Van de Kaap Diamond Company who acquires and smuggles diamonds past Liberian officials. When a smuggling attempt fails and Archer is subsequently arrested, Van de Kaap's bigwigs wash their hands of him. Not wanting to blow their cover for the sake of the continual lining of their pockets, they leave Danny to fend for himself in a country ravaged by war. While detained in a prison in Freetown, he overhears Captain Poison in another cell hiss at Solomon about the location of the stone. Knowing that this diamond will save his hide with Col. Coetzee (Vosloo) - a mercenary responsible for the war that rages on - and provide a one-way ticket out of the country, Danny arranges for Solomon to be released and offers to find his family in exchange for information regarding the location of the stone.
Enter Maddy Bowen (Connelly), a tenacious and attractive journalist who at first utilizes her physical charisma to charm the facts out of Danny, coming off as just another correspondent hungry for a big story. Despite being in ruthless pursuit of the facts, Maddy is a realist - she knows all too well that her presence does little to change things, her candid and emotionally harrowing articles ineffectual in the face of turmoil. Her burning desire to expose the dirt beneath the diamond trade's pristine fingernails becomes all too clear when she reprimands Danny for capitalizing on Solomon's desperation, in turn deciding to assist Solomon in the search for his now vagrant family.
The film's screenplay from Charles Leavitt (K-PAX) is smart, cynical and emotionally earnest and bases much of its scripted chaos on factual events that Leavitt heavily researched. Wanting to portray the conflict diamond industry as truthfully as possible, Leavitt was well aware that some of what he shared would greatly offend companies in that industry and possibly instigate nasty lawsuits, namely from De Beers (who does a majority of their mining in South Africa as well as Botswana, Namibia and Canada).
Hounsou (nominated for Best Supporting Actor) is exceptional as Solomon Vandy, a man who wants nothing more than to provide well for his family. The desperation to find them and the burning rage against those who ravaged their once happy life are translated beautifully through Hounsou's emphatic eyes and tremulous mouth.
Connelly proves once again that she is a formidable actress as Maddy, her immense green eyes emoting much of the conviction in her dialogue.
DiCaprio (nominated for Best Actor) deftly executes a South African accent as well as some indisputably supreme acting skills. As Danny, he portrays a man who has known nothing but violence since his childhood and as a result loosely carries his conscience in his pocket. His self-imposed teaming with Solomon proves to be the morality check he needs, the ruthless pursuit of the diamond forcing him to look directly into the face of a nation ravaged by disorder and demoralization, something which he has turned the other cheek to so many times in the past.
In the film's closing scenes, Leavitt's screenplay states that despite the signing of the Kimberley Process (a process introduced by United Nations resolution 55/56 that is designed to certify the origin of rough diamonds from sources which are free of conflict) in 2003 that "illegal diamonds are still finding their way to market" and that "it is up to the consumer to insist that a diamond is conflict-free". For any women that may view the film and that read this particular caption, it will have them eyeing some of their more prized pieces of jewelry with a newfound - albeit morbid - curiosity.
Bottom line: "Blood Diamond" is an eye-opening examination of a dirty business of which few are aware and it is clear from the outcome that it will take more than a simple governmental resolution to stop the murder and sabotage that a small, flashy piece of carbon has managed to create.
Engrossing Movie I absolutely love this movie and it battles a topic that is not talked about much, and that is the diamond trade in Africa where people get killed and maimed over these diamonds (hence the term blood diamond). This movie is fairly accurate in its portrayl of Africa and it will bring you to tears. It's an emotionally moving film that everyone must see. It is a nice added addition to any DVD collection.
Not very entertaining though enlightening... This movie was very well put together for what it is. It is almost a docudrama about present day Africa, exploitation of Africans by each other as much as anyone, and the diamond trade.
I have two problems with the movie. First, it was not entertaining to me. It was a too violent depiction of real life and, overall, it did not reflect much hope. Second, I found Leonardo's character's eventual compassion too little and too late to believe.
This movie was highly recommended to me by several people. I guess it just is not my cup of tea.
Blood Diamond I really love this movie. I'm South AFrican and I think Leonarda Di Caprio does a stellar job in his role and I enjoyed the whole story.
Very nice.. Leo is amazing... Very nice movie. Leo gave his best... overall good direction/story. Worth stocking up for personal collection.
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