PRINTVox rates Blood Diamond
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Djimon Hounsou stars as Solomon Vandy in Blood Diamond.
December 10, 2006 | 12:00 a.m. CST
If there is one movie this season that will truly capture you with its moving and heart-wrenching story, it’s Blood Diamond. The breathtaking land of Sierra Leone is torn apart by chaos and civil war during the 1990s, all fueled by the demand for diamonds. Rebels tear through villages, slaughtering innocent people who have never even laid eyes on a diamond. They show no mercy, kill for the sake of killing. Then the rebels force the young boys of the villages to become machine gun-wielding soldiers of misfortune, blazing away at their own people.
The story is of Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a South African diamond smuggler who encounters Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a Mende fisherman. Vandy has been separated from his family by the rebels and forced to work in the fields where he finds and hides a rare pink diamond. To get his family back, Vandy grudgingly accepts the help of Archer and Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist.
Archer, however, has his own plans for the diamond. After being caught smuggling, he hopes to use it for a second chance. Bowen desperately wants to uncover the deep connection between the diamond industry executives in London and the trafficking occurring Sierra Leone, and the one person that can give her the information she needs is Archer. In the end, they all will need to rely on each other for help and survival.
DiCaprio is wonderful as a mercenary with a troubled past that has you worrying whose side he’s really on throughout the film. However, it is Hounsou’s performance that is truly masterful. He brilliantly portrays a broken father whose only wish is to save his son from the rebels and reunite his family, but he is trapped in the very center of a conflict for power.
In a country responsible for consuming two-thirds of the diamond supply, the United States aids in the turmoil surrounding all of the “bling bling,” turning it into “bling bang” as Archer puts it. You will never look at a diamond the same way after this film. After all, who knows what blood has been shed for the priceless gem.
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