MyRating: YYYYYDirector: Edward Zwick
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Kagiso Kuypers, Arnold Vosloo
MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and language
US Gross: US$ 57.4 Million
Worldwide Gross: US$ 171.4 Million
Set during the civil war and political chaos in Sierra Leone in 1996-1999, the movie told about a story of Danny Archer, an ex-mercenary and a smuggler from Zimbabwe, who smuggles conflict diamonds (called as 'blood diamonds') from Sierra Leone into Liberia, then to be sold to the Great Britain. Fate brings him to Solomon Vandy (Hounsou), a fisherman in Sierra Leone, whose dreams are shattered when the rebels invade his village and force him to work in the diamond fields, and separate him from his wife and children.
While working in the mines, Solomon finds a huge pink diamond and hides it, just before the rebels who kidnapped him are being attacked by the government army, and he ends up being arrested by the army. Archer, who somehow knows this secret, comes to release Solomon and proposes to exchange the diamond with finding his missing family. With the help of Maddy Bowen (Connelly), a beautiful and idealistic American journalist who changes Archer's life and perspective, Archer finally can locate Solomon's wife and daughters in a refugee camp, except for his son, who has been kidnapped and recruited by the rebels to become their soldier. So, Archer and Salomon embark on a mission together to save Solomon's son and find the hidden pink diamond. That mission is also the second chance for Archer to make peace with his life and to find redemption from all the wrongdoings that he has done in the past.
I really loved this movie, which has a very captivating story with solid performances by the actors, Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou. The intriguing story, together with a good direction by Edward Zwick, makes us want to know what will happen next, while the engaging characters make us care enough to know what fate will follow them. The locales and settings were exotic. This movie has a good balance between drama and suspenseful actions, including gun firing, explosions and brutal bloodshed. It shows us that somewhere on this earth (maybe everywhere), 'greed' is so destructive, that it will sacrifice millions of innocent people just for the sake of the fortune of a small amount of rich people. This movie was also touching. The ending scene when Archer has to shoot many enemy soldiers from the higher ground was very powerful and still leaves me with chills.
Leo successfully personified his character as Danny Archer, who has a strong survival instinct and a nature of opportunist in his heart, but didn't really care for the victims of the civil war at the beginning of the movie. However at the end, after going through a series of events, he finally shows his hidden self, who has a heart of sacrifice. Leo's charming and smart performance, with his natural expressions and convinced (but relax) acting, made his character becoming very likable. And it made us care for what will happen to him. On the other hand, Hounsou also showed his wonderful performance as Solomon. He gave 'life' to his character with his deep expressions of fear, angry, panic and desperation. And as a result for their winning performances, both of them got nomination for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor by The Academy. Jennifer Connelly also gave a good performance as Maddy, with his idealistic views about war, which contradicted with Archer's at the beginning. And her love attraction with Archer gave us some spare moments to breath and enjoy this suspenseful drama.
For me, this was the best movie of 2006. I even liked it more than The Departed, which won Best Picture Oscar for 2006. The reason was simply I liked the story of Blood Diamond more. Another reason maybe because I have watched Infernal Affairs (2002), the original Hong Kong version of The Departed, which has the same par in terms of quality of the story and performances by the actors, as compared with the Scorsese's remake. Therefore, the story did not surprise me anymore as it surprised me when I watched the original Hong Kong version, since basically the stories were the same.
This was also the first movie that made me began to really like Leo DiCaprio as an actor. Not before that. I like Titanic (1997) mostly because of its spectacular disaster theme (even though I also like the performances of Leo and Kate there). Gangs of New York (2002) marked his successful comeback after some years of drawback, but I was certainly not a fan of him. And I didn't care much for him in Catch Me If You Can (2002), because at that time I was a big fan of Tom Hanks, and I remember I didn't really feel satisfied with the movie, since Hanks was being overshadowed by Leo there. He was great in The Aviator (2004), but again he was not in my favorite list yet. I even liked the character of Matt Damon more in The Departed (2006), like I liked the character of Andy Lau (one of my favorite Hong Kong stars) more than Tony Leung in the original version. Only in Blood Diamond, Leo finally got me with his charming performance. And this movie will mark one of many great performances of Leo in his career. This is one great movie. (MJ)
