Blood Diamond

BLOOD DIAMOND (15)

D: Edward Zwick

Warner Bros./Virtual/Spring Creek/Bedford Falls (Paula Weinstein, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, Graham King & Gillian Gorfil)

USA/South Africa 🇺🇸 🇿🇦 2006

137 mins

Adventure/War/Drama

W: Charles Leavitt & C. Gaby Mitchell

DP: Eduardo Serra

Ed: Steven Rosenblum

Mus: James Newton Howard

PD: Dan Weil

Cos: Ngila Dickson

Leonardo DiCaprio (Danny Archer), Jennifer Connelly (Maddy Bowen), Djimon Hounsou (Solomon Vandy), Michael Sheen (Rupert Simmons), Arnold Vosloo (Col. Coetzee), Kagiso Kuypers (Dia Vandy)

Set in Sierra Leone during civil war in 1999 when villagers are forced at gunpoint by rebels to locate diamonds and fund the conflict.

A huge pink diamond is found by humble fisherman, Solomon Vandy (Hounsou), who hides it. When diamond smuggling Zimbabwean Danny Archer (DiCaprio) learns the Vandy has hidden the diamond, he joins forces with him to locate it and in return promises to reunite Solomon with his son, who had been kidnapped by the rebels and trained to be a soldier.

The film has some rather heavy political messages and some unpleasant scenes involving child soldiers, limb amputations and slavery, but is nevertheless a heart-stopping adventure/war movie with one of Leonardo DiCaprio's finest ever performances, delivering a brilliant Africaan accent as the unscrupulous smuggler. The film's unsung hero is without a doubt Djimon Hounsou, absolutely brilliant as a father who just wants to be reunited with his family, unjustly torn apart during an unsavoury period of West African history.

8/10

Leonardo DiCaprio & Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond

Did You Know:

When Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives in South Africa, there are two women standing in front of the airport and he walks by them. These women are DiCaprio's own mother and grandmother.