Blood Diamond (Blu-ray)

Star Review

In 2007, DiCaprio joined the select group of actors to be Oscar nominated for performances in two separate films in the same year. The first was for his role as the undercover cop in Scorsese's The Departed, the second was as ex-mercenary and diamond smuggler Danny Archer in Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond.
Zwick's film is an earnest, muscular thriller about the machinations of the diamond industry in Africa. The film's exploration of the links between western buyers of precious gems and exploitation, poverty, child soldiers and civil war in Africa caused outrage among diamond mining companies, who were forced into mounting marketing campaigns to reassure customers in the west.
Notwithstanding its meticulously researched, polemical (and at times satirical) intent, this is at its core an action film featuring some brilliantly staged set pieces. Overshadowing DiCaprio, Oscar-nominated Djimon Hounsou delivers a performance of striking intensity as diamond worker Solomon Vandy, whose discovery of the valuable 'big pink' stone, sets the film's events in motion.

Pasquale Iannone on 21st May 2007

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Film Description

Set in Sierra Leone, Blood Diamond explores the role of diamond trading in the African civil war of the late 1990s. Narrowly escaping death when his village is invaded by Revolutionary United Front (R.U.F.) militia, farmer Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) is enslaved at a diamond mine and has his family taken away from him. When he discovers an unusually large stone he buries it, knowing it might be his only means of retrieving his family. While Vandy is imprisoned, white African diamond smuggler Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) overhears an angry R.U.F. leader shouting at the farmer about the missing diamond. Seizing the opportunity, he gets Vandy out of jail, then offers to help find his family in return for half the stone's worth. United by a common goal, the two men clash over drastically different values, but manage to stick together in pursuit of the prize.

Addressing a serious subject with passion and skill, director Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai) delivers impressive action sequences that feel horrifically real without seeming excessive. Providing a disturbing and educational insight into a world many know little about.

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Film Details

Cast

Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jimi Mistry, Michael Sheen, Basil Wallace

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