Blood Diamond

Locations
Call Number: DVD Action Blood
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	DVD Action Blood	1-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult A/V 1-week checkout	DVD Action Blood	1-week checkout	On Shelf

Originally released as a motion picture in 2006.
Special features: Commentary with director Edward Zwick; theatrical trailer.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Kagiso Kuypers, Arnold Vosloo, Michael Sheen, Antony Coleman, Benu Mabhena, Anoiting Lukola, David Harewood, Basil Wallace, Jimi Mistry.
Danny Archer is an ex-mercenary turned smuggler. Solomon Vandy is a local Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join together for two dangerous missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son. The son was conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside.
DVD, region 1, widescreen presentation; Dolby Digital 5.1 surround.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

This movie changed my outlook. submitted by unknown on May 21, 2007, 2:36pm
My thoughts: This movie was a candid look at the not so settling truth! TIA for those who saw it, and for those who didn't this is a must see. This movie is not only entertaining, but it speaks to your soul!

This is what IMBD has to say about the movie I will add my comments at the end:

a gritty telling of how many lives your wedding ring cost

Remember how Hotel Rwanda had the idea of "look how terrible things are in Africa, and you're doing nothing to stop it?" Blood Diamond is pretty much the same guilt trip repackaged, except it hits closer to home because the idea isn't that we simply do nothing to stop the blood shed, but we actually support it. If you want to know the how/why, you'll have to see it.

The gist of the story is this: DiCaprio plays a diamond smuggler who overhears about Djimon Hounsou's 100 karat diamond which he buried somewhere in Africa. Before this rock is even introduced to the story we already get the sense that something is horribly wrong in Africa, a resistance group (the RUF) is terrorizing the villages and using slaves to dig for diamonds. DiCaprio's character wants to split the diamond's profit with Hounsou, and in return he'll retrieve Hounsou's family from the KUBs and the refugee camps. There enlies the problem: how to go about doing all this without getting killed.

The violent state of decay depicted is what reminds me of Hotel Rwanda; and I have a feeling that if you liked that film you'll enjoy this one. It's overall message isn't too different. Where it deviates is that this film is much more action packed. When you see characters running through the streets in crossfire it's nothing short of what you'd expect from a World War II movie. It was an overall nice balance between the dialog scenes and action scenes; not to say the dialog was boring at times, there was a lot of tension and the sense of "will this guy betray him? or he betray the other guy instead?" which kept the movie interesting.

Acting wise: good comments all around, although Djimon Hounsou is the shining star in the cast; I think he was a bit more believable of being a refugee who wants his family back more than DiCaprio was of being a suave diamond smuggler. The villain of the film, I forget what his name is so I'll just call him Patchy, for reasons that will become more evident when you see the film: he played a great villain all the way through.

Art wise: the was a bit of a creative dryness when it came to cinematography. Nothing memorable from the soundtrack. No specific scenes that stand out from the rest due to audio editing or whatever. It is what it is. There's nothing specifically artistic about it, but I guess I can live with that because the story and the characters were the center of attention. The last shot of the film is rather nicely composed, but the rest is just sort of bland and blunt- but I guess it helps keep the film realistic.

In short: Blood Diamond did not disappoint. A great story with compelling characters. I think we can expect to see some Oscar Nominations showing up for this film.

Great Movie submitted by TripleH123 on August 20, 2011, 3:26pm This was a great movie that made me scream, shout, and even made me jump!
Great movie.

a good way to sneak info re Africa into the mainstream submitted by hathaway1066 on August 3, 2013, 9:28pm Not sure if everything in this movie's underlying version of West African conflicts/diamond mining/smuggling is the most accurate version, but for an action/adventure flick, it manages to convey a lot of what SEEMS to be fairly accurate information about how conflicts in Africa are tied to extracting natural resources and how wealthy/corporate interests are involved.

solid action movie submitted by crp on July 28, 2020, 2:20pm solid action movie; not entirely accurate in its portrayal most likely (i'm not an expert) but worth watching