Journal 5: Blood Diamond Review Paul Winters

The movie Blood Diamonds starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Dijmon Hounsou,  and Jennifer Connelly, is a very powerful action thriller with an eye opening message that blood may be on the diamonds that many obsess to have on their fingers.

Danny Archer, played by Dicaprio, is a diamond smuggler in the country of Sierra Leone. After being caught trying to smuggle diamonds out of the country he is thrown into jail and hears of a prized diamond has that has been found. The movie closes in on how he takes the matter into his own hands on a death defying journey to seize the diamond. The story line brings life the harsh reality of the life many are living in this country as their is a mad scramble for resources and specifically diamonds.

The film has a value of being thrilling entertainment with a real and eye opening reality of what is going on in Sierra Leone, when many may not know that such things are happening there. I would recommend the movie, It thought it was thought out and well played. It gave everyone the thrill that they wanted while also having the education side of things to it. One of the main themes the movie had to the viewer was pay attention to where your diamonds are coming from, you may be perpetuating this conflict.  The plot worked at bringing things to lights of what was not widely known at the time of what was really going on just so people could have diamonds. It educates the masses in a way that it shows that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes of such a prized possession to people.

One of the plot events that was very meaningful to me was when the it showed the RUF working in the rivers and sifting through the dirt and being at the mines, showing the hard work that was going on at the end of a gun barrel. It was something that A Long Way Gone only mentioned and never really went into detail. To have it recreated and portrayed in the movie was great at helping me understand the book more by finding out how the RUF was funded and how they also could gain so much power. The control of the diamonds really helped me understand what I already know from A Long Way Gone with a deeper meaning. I thought all the characters were good at bringing to light what was happening and what was going on all parties. The media, the smugglers, and the civilians were all covered, Solomon Vandy was essential for us to have it shown what toil and distress looks like when these things happen to someone.

The dialogue gives personality of characters very well in the film, such as Solomon Vandy’s high expectations for his son and his down to earth comments. Also the carelessness of using language and smoking and having aggressive dialogue spoke a lot for Archer.

After reading some reviews I learned I liked the movie a lot more than they did. They were very critical and not pleased with the acting or the plot or the characters or the lighting or their own lives it seemed. As New York Times writer,MANOHLA DARGIS, starts out with a tone of saying the movie is foolish in a sense. “The makers of “Blood Diamond,” an exceptionally foolish thriller starring a most excellent Leonardo DiCaprio, want you to know there may be blood on your hands, specifically your wedding finger” (Dargris, 2006). Although some of the them gave credit to the message of the movie it seemed as though many of them deemed it foolish.

This picture features Archer, about to call in an air strike on the RUF camp. Government troops are at war with the The Revolutionary United Front (RUF)