Blood Diamond

Dir: Edward Zwick.

I’m not a big fan of Leonardo DeCaprio (possibly because Mette is) so I was surprised to find myself enjoying ’Blood Diamond’ largely due to his performance. After watching ’The Departed’ (Ye gods that was crap) I was not expecting such a good performance and when DeCaprio started talking in a thick Rhodesian accent (very similar to South African) I was not enthusiastic. The film however quickly grew on me, though its a fairly straight forward moral lecture from the first scene to the last. Djimon Hounsou does his usual routine of the Noble African TM and Jennifer Connelly is DeCaprio’s love interest disguised as a jaded, though still crusading, journalist. Its particularly galling to see Hounsou carted out in the same role once again because I’m sure he has so much more to offer.

DeCaprio carries them all however. In a film utterly morally linear, his is the only character to break out of step and offer some one other than a sinister villain or helpless good guy. Archer (DeCaprio’s character) is after a large pink diamond that Solomon (Hounsou) has found and buried near an RUF mining camp in the diamond fields of Sierra Leone. He is not alone in this quest. The RUF want the diamond and so does Archers former emplyer, a South African mercenary commander called Colonel Coetzee (played by the guy who was Imhotep in 'The Mummy'). Archer must duck and dodge the whole film through, dragging and following Solomon who is searching for his missing family.

The film reaches its climax when Archer calls up Colonel Coetzee and calls in an airstrike on the RUF mining camp where Solomon's son is employed as a child soldier, whilst Solomon is listening. The mercenaries attack but of course the main characters are caught up in the fire fight. This could almost be so unusual a beast as a thought provoking action film, if only the ending weren't such a foregone conclusion.

An interesting detail is Colonel Coetzee's helicopter gunship. Apparently this same modified Soviet Hind-24 was actually used in Sierra Leone doing exactly what it is shown doing in the film. Hunting down and killing RUF rebels. There is a short documentary about it, here.