Blood Diamond

I finally got to watch the movie “Blood Diamond” yesterday, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou, directed and produced by Edward Zwick.

I’ve been wanting to watch this movie ever since it was released, mainly because I wanted to see how the issue was handled and presented, and secondly because Leonardo DiCaprio plays the role of a Zimbabwean diamond smuggler, with the accent and all, so yeah there was some nostalgia involved.

I really liked the movie, and I think it hits the right spot. As someone on imdb rightly puts it, this movie is a lot like Hotel Rwanda, another great movie which shows how terrible things are in Africa, and that the world is doing nothing to help; except that Blood Diamond shows that not only isn’t the world doing anything to help stop the bloodshed, but in fact is supporting and nurturing it.

The movie handles the issue of blood diamonds, otherwise known as conflict diamonds or war diamonds, which are diamonds that are mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading army’s war efforts.
The story of the film is woven around the main characters to portray the sad reality created by the trade of blood diamonds.

The acting was very good, and I’m really appreciating Leonardo DiCaprio more and more as an actor with every new movie I see him in; Djimon Hounsou also gave a great performance as usual.
So it’s only normal that, among the five nominations this movie got for the Oscars, we find the nominations for Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Best Supporting Actor (Djimon Hounsou).
Movie-making wise, the film was really well done too.

I think movies like this one are really important to show people what others in some parts of the world are going through, and how their smallest actions could affect those people’s lives in a very big way.

Africa is an extremely rich continent which has been used, abused and thrown into suffering time and again by the leading powers of the world. It is unacceptable, it is important for the world to see and know this, and action has to be taken to stop it from going on.

Despite all the problems they’re living through, an old man in the movie tells Djimon Hounsou’s character: “just think what mess we would be in if we had oil!”
I can only agree with this old man; these days having oil is a curse for any country, it will only mean unwarranted attacks and wars launched upon its people.

In short, I recommend this movie, and while I’m at it, I also recommend watching Hotel Rwanda.

My score for this movie would be: 8.5/10.