Blood Diamond
2006
**½
Director: Edward Zwick
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Kagiso Kyupers
Edward Zwick wants to make ambitious and worthy dramas, but he doesn't like to leave the audience too depressed at the end of the film. The finished product always feels like a compromise. His latest example is set in civil war-ridden Sierra Leone where conflict diamonds are mined with slave labour in order to buy arms for child soldiers. A thought-provoking setting, but, in all honesty, this is just a rip roaring action adventure about a white mercenary who wants to get his hands on a gigantic diamond which was hidden by a local man whose family is torn apart. The film paints a believable picture of the conflict, but offers a laughably implausible solution to one man's private hell. DiCaprio and Hounsou are great, though.
