Rent Blood Diamond (2006)

Heart wrenching - Blood Diamond review by CP Customer

One of the best films I've seen this year. Leonardo DiCaprio does an amazing job and somehow manages to play this complex character without turning him into the villain. There are some really harrowing scenes and this movie will really leave you thinking about the third world and Africa in particular. It doesn't pull any punches and its difficult to watch at times. Highly recommended and including what is now my favourite line from a film - I won't spoil it for you but it made me laugh so much I had to rewind and hear it again!

Violent - Blood Diamond review by JD

The level of horrific, real African style violence in this film is maximum. I have no doubt that there have been many times where this is an accurate portrayal of the life and times of South Africans. It does not make for easy viewing and you will leave the sofa at the end of this film feeling shocked, angry and bitter. Is it better to see such barbaric, savage brutality or to be sheltered and serene? Personally I would prefer to believe that it is uncommon and leave it at that. If you want to see what Edward Zwick thinks it was like, go ahead but will it make you better?

TopNotch Action Thriller - Blood Diamond review by GI

A first rate action thriller set in West Africa amidst a civil war and international corruption over 'conflict' diamonds. Leonardo DiCaprio stars and proves his action chops as well nailing a character of moral ambiguity. He plays Archer, a former soldier and now diamond smuggler moving illegal diamonds across the various borders at the behest of his old army boss (Arnold Vosloo). When a smuggling trip goes wrong Archer sees way to repay his debts when he hears that a humble fisherman, Solomon (Djimon Hounsou), knows the location of a rare pink diamond he has hidden in the bush. Eventually everyone isa after this diamond and Solomon is searching for his missing family and a son turned child soldier. Archer finds he needs the help of crusading journalist Maddy (Jennifer Connolly) to get across country on the promise he will reveal all he knows about the smuggling networks. With some fantastic action set pieces and a narrative that opens up the debates around western exploitation of African countries for their natural resources, the use of children as soldiers by rebel factions and the plight of refugees this also is a fast paced piece of entertainment. A cracking film with DiCaprio especially brilliant here (and really good at the accent of a former Rhodesian soldier who can converse in the patois language of the rebels). If you've never seen this then I highly recommend it. Great stuff.

An absolutely disgusting & nakedly exploitative film mining warzones for shocks and impact - Blood Diamond review by TB

This is a film which I actually hated on a cellular level. It just for me kept diving lower & lower down the toilet of revoltingness, using the horrific context of the many civil wars in Africa to get visceral shock value. It is also a film which seems to want to show the serious side of these conflicts, but then its narration & story just end up using those same horrors for cheap and exploitative shock value.

DiCaprio plays a Rhodesian diamond smuggler called Danny Archer who, after hearing about a fisherman who discovers a massive pink diamond, then links up with the fisherman who he met in prison to try and get to the valuable stone. The fisherman, Soloman Vandy, is desperate to locate his family who have been kidnapped by the warlords.

Within the film are a huge number of highly emotive and distressing scenes, including extreme violence carried out against the population of the country the film is set in. But these scenes are all done in extremely gratuitous ways, in order to both shock and repulse. And front and centre of this are the scenes of the young son of the fisherman being trained as a child soldier. But the film’s treatment of this horrible and distressing situation is to REPEATEDLY cut to children shooting either other children or adults. This shock tactic is really disgusting and uses a horrific time in history as simply a way to invoke shock. There is no narrative purpose behind it.

But the moment for me when this film just went so far over the line that nothing could redeem it was a scene where the fisherman finds his family in a prison camp and can only communicate and hold them through a wire fence. And whilst this scene played out, with the film straining every sinew to scream at you “Look at how much these people are suffering!” the journalist character then pulls out her camera and starts snapping away, which to me translated as complete opportunism to capture horrific trauma and stick it on the front of a magazine/media product. And I just switched this off and felt revolted that I had in any way contributed to the rampant exploitation I had just seen.

Do not watch this film.