Blood Diamond (film)

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Blood Diamond

A promotional film poster for
Blood Diamond
Directed by Edward Zwick
Produced by Gillian Gorfil
Marshall Herskovitz
Graham King
Paula Weinstein
Edward Zwick
Written by Charles Leavitt
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio
Jennifer Connelly
Djimon Hounsou
Michael Sheen
Arnold Vosloo
Music by James Newton Howard
Cinematography Eduardo Serra
Editing by Steven Rosenblum
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s) Flag of the United States December 8, 2006
Flag of the United Kingdom January 26, 2007
Running time 143 min
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English, Mende, Krio, Afrikaans
Budget $100,000,000
Gross revenue $171,405,846 (Worldwide)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Blood Diamond is an Academy Award nominated 2006 adventure drama film co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are diamonds mined in African war zones and sold to finance the conflicts and profit the warlords and the diamond companies across the world. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actor (DiCaprio) and Best Supporting Actor (Hounsou).

Contents

[edit] Plot

Set during the Sierra Leone Civil War in 1999, the film shows a country torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces.[1] The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections.

The film begins with the capture of Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a Mende fisherman, by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels when they invade the small Sierra Leonian village of Shenge. Separated from his family, Solomon is enslaved to work in the diamond fields under the command of Captain Poison (David Harewood) while his son Dia is conscripted into the rebel forces, the brainwashing eventually turning him into a hardened killer. The RUF use the diamonds to fund their war effort, often trading them directly for arms. While working in the RUF diamond fields as a forced laborer, Solomon finds a large diamond of rare pink colouring. Moments before government troops launch an attack, Captain Poison sees Solomon hiding the diamond. Captain Poison is injured in the attack before he can get the stone, and both he and Solomon are taken to prison in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), an Anglo ex-mercenary from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) trades arms for diamonds with an RUF commander. He is imprisoned after being caught smuggling the diamonds into neighboring Liberia, and the diamonds are confiscated. He had been transporting the diamonds to a South African mercenary named Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo), who is in turn employed by South African diamond company executive Van De Kaap (Marius Weyers) and his deputy Simmons (Michael Sheen). Coetzee is Archer's former commander in 32 Battalion, the most decorated unit of the South African Border War, made up of Angolan and Rhodesian soldiers and white South African officers. Archer is desperate for a way to repay Colonel Coetzee for the diamonds taken from him when he was arrested and thrown in jail, in the same prison as the fisherman. While in prison, he overhears Captain Poison ranting to Solomon about the discovery of the large diamond and decides to hunt down the stone. He arranges for Solomon's release from prison and offers to help him find his family in exchange for the diamond.

Archer and Solomon find their way to Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist, who helps Solomon track down his family. Bowen soon learns that Archer is using Solomon to find his diamond and will eventually steal it for himself, to leave Africa forever. Bowen, a humanitarian, refuses to help Archer unless he can tell her about the diamond market to stop the flow of blood diamonds out of Africa, cutting off funding for Civil War and ending a mass revolution. Archer gives Bowen the information that she wants and gets access to use the press convoy to travel to Kono to find the diamond.

The convoy is attacked and Archer, Solomon and Bowen escape and find their way to the South African mercenary force under Colonel Coetzee. There they learn of the attack force preparing to retake Sierra Leone -- a reference to the actual 1995 hiring of South African security firm Executive Outcomes by the provisional government of Sierra Leone. The two men leave the camp on foot while Bowen boards a plane carrying foreigners out of the conflict zone. After an arduous overnight trek, the men reach the mining camp in a river valley, still under RUF control, where Solomon discovered and buried the large diamond. Here, Solomon is painfully reunited with his son Dia, who refuses to acknowledge him because he has been brainwashed by the rebels. Solomon is also reunited with Captain Poison, wo orders him to find the diamond, but the South African mercenary force, also after the diamond, dispatches the RUF rebels in a massive air strike which kills many of the RUF rebels and some of the miners. Amist the choas, Solomon suffers from temporary insanity and kills Poison with a shovel. Through a deal with Archer, Colonel Coetzee forces Solomon to retrieve the stone. In a desperate battle, Archer kills Coetzee and the other two soldiers with him after realizing that they would have killed both Archer and Solomon upon locating the diamond. At this point Dia holds Archer and Solomon at gunpoint with a pistol, but Solomon manages to convince him to side with them.

As Archer overturns a body to take equipment he realizes he has been shot, but keeps this to himself. Having arranged in advance for a plane to pick him up, he radios to the pilot, Benjamin Kapanay (Basil Wallace), who demands that Archer dump Solomon and Dia. Slowly and painfully the group makes its way from the valley towards an airstrip atop a nearby ridge. Archer collapses, unable to climb, and Solomon carries him a little ways before Archer has him put him down. He tells Solomon to take Dia home, knowing that he is dying, and gives them the diamond. Archer holds off the soldiers chasing them while Solomon and Dia flee, and then makes a final phone call to Bowen, asking her to help Solomon as a last favor before looking out over the beautiful landscape of Africa once more and dying peacefully.

With the help of Bowen, Solomon trades the diamond to Simmons for a large sum of money and the reunification of his family, making the exchange as Solomon's wife and children deplane from a Lear Jet at a London airport. Bowen, who secretly photographs the deal, later publishes a magazine piece exposing the trade in "conflict" or "blood" diamonds. The film ends with Solomon smiling at the photograph Maddy took of Archer earlier, now published in her magazine along with the complete story of their journey, before addressing a conference on blood diamonds in Kimberley, South Africa, describing his experiences. This refers to an actual meeting that took place in Kimberley in 2000 and led to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which seeks to certify the origin of diamonds in order to curb the trade in conflict diamonds.

[edit] Controversies

When the plot of the film became public, De Beers, the South African diamond mining and trading company, maintained that the trade in conflict diamonds had been reduced from 4% to 1% of total purchases by the Kimberley Process. De Beers denied a suggestion that the company had pushed for the film to contain a disclaimer to the effect that the events it portrayed were fictional and outdated.[2]

More recently, the New York Post reported that Warner Bros. Pictures had promised that 27 child and teenage film extras who were amputees would receive prosthetics once the film shoot was done.[2] Several months after the completion of filming, however, the prosthetics had not been supplied, and the studio reportedly told the amputees they had to wait until the December 2006 release of the film to maximize a public relations boost. In the meantime, the private charity Eastern Cape assisted in supplying prosthetics to the amputees.[2]

These allegations were countered by an article in L.A. Weekly, which stated that Warner Bros. had not promised the prosthetics, but that the cast and crew raised between $200,000 and $400,000 to begin a "Blood Diamond Fund", which was then matched by Warner Bros. and "administered by a Maputo-based international accountancy firm under the supervision of Laws and João Ribeiro, the production managers in Mozambique".[3]

The film was released in the midst of an upsurge in mass media publicity about the conflict-diamond trade, including a song by rapper Kanye West entitled "Diamonds from Sierra Leone," a VH1 documentary about conditions in Sierra Leone called Blingand the Andrew Niccol film Lord of War starring Nicolas Cage.

[edit] Reception

Blood Diamond was released to positive reviews from both critics and audiences. Richard Roeper gave the film four stars, calling for it to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture. Critics and audiences alike agree that this was one of the best films of 2006.

[edit] Cast

Actor Role
Djimon Hounsou Solomon Vandy
Leonardo DiCaprio Danny Archer
Jennifer Connelly Maddy Bowen
Kagiso Kuypers Dia Vandy
Arnold Vosloo Col. Coetzee
Antony Coleman Cordell Brown
Benu Mabhena Jassie Vandy
Anointing Lukola N'Yanda Vandy
David Harewood Capt. Poison
Basil Wallace Benjamin Kapanay
Jimi Mistry Nabil
Michael Sheen Rupert Simmons
Marius Weyers Rudolf Van De Kaap
Stephen Collins Ambassador Walker
Ntare Mwine M'Ed

[edit] Soundtrack

Blood Diamond
Film score by James Newton Howard
Released Dec 19, 2006
Genre Soundtracks
Film scores
Length 143Min
Label Varese Sarabande
Professional reviews
James Newton Howard chronology
Lady in the Water Blood Diamond The Lookout

Blood Diamond is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. It was composed by Academy Award nominated composer James Newton Howard, and won the 2008 Soundtrack of the Year Classical BRIT Award.

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Blood Diamond Titles" (1:32)
  2. "Crossing the Bridge" (1:41)
  3. "Village Attack" (1:52)
  4. "RUF Kidnaps Dia" (3:02)
  5. "Archer & Solomon Hike" (1:55)
  6. "Maddy & Archer" (1:56)
  7. "Solomon Finds Family" (2:09)
  8. "Fall of Freetown" (4:45)
  9. "Did You Bury It?" (1:36)
  10. "Archer Sells Diamond" (1:40)
  11. "Goodbyes" (2:40)
  12. "Your Son is Gone" (1:21)
  13. "Diamond Mine Bombed" (4:31) )
  14. "Solomon's Helping Hand" (1:11)
  15. "G8 Conference" (2:36)
  16. "Solomon & Archer Escape" (2:12)
  17. "I Can Carry You" (1:30)
  18. "Your Mother Loves You" (2:24)
  19. "Thought I'd Never Call?" (3:56)
  20. "London" (2:38)
  21. "Solomon Vandy" (2:11)
  22. "Ankala" - Performed by Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars (4:12)
  23. "Baai" - Performed by Emmanuel Jal with Abdel Gadir Salim (4:37)
  24. "When Da Dawgs Come Out to Play" (Album Version) - Performed by Bai Burea feat. Masta Kent and Bullet Rhymes (3:19)

[edit] Awards and nominations

79th Academy Awards

  • Nominated for Best Actor In A Leading Role - Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Nominated for Best Actor In A Supporting Role - Djimon Hounsou
  • Nominated for Best Sound Mixing
  • Nominated for Best Sound Editing
  • Nominated for Best Film Editing - Steven Rosenblum

2007 Black Reel Awards

  • Best Supporting Actor - Djimon Hounsou (won)

12th Critics' Choice Awards:

64th Golden Globe Awards:

NAACP Image Awards:

78th National Board of Review Awards:

11th Satellite Awards:

  • Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama - Leonardo DiCaprio (nominated)

13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards:

[edit] DVD

The DVD was released in Region 1 format on March 20, 2007. Both a single-disc and a two-disc version are available. High Definition versions on HD DVD and Blu-Ray have also been released.

[edit] References

  1. ^ James Berardinelli. Blood Diamond review. Reel Views.
  2. ^ a b c "Studio Too Far Out On A Limb", New York Post, 2006-10-23. 
  3. ^ Blood From Stones. LA Weekly. Retrieved on 2007-01-28.

[edit] External links

[edit] Trailer

[edit] Reviews

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