In Continuum.

Blood Diamond is a film that is hard to stomach, simply because of the graphic images that the director puts forth to the audience, as well as the messages that are so close to heart. It is true what some people say about Africa - nobody cares too much about it. I guess in a way, we have all been guilty of causing the continent to sink to a level it is at today, contributed simply because we have done nothing to stop it. But sometimes, the lot of us with a conscience, we'd ask ourselves what the hell we can do in the greater scheme of things, when the powers are be can't be bothered themselves. But this movie tells us ways that we can stop such so-called 'Acts Against Humanism', simply by not buying diamonds. Here's why.

The movie is about the story that we haven't heard in the past, simply because we have all taken our diamonds for granted. We see those glistering stones in the shop windows, glittering under the light bulbs all day long with a price tag enough to buy you half a house. A lot of us like diamonds, a lot of us want diamonds. But none of us really know how these diamonds came by in the very first place, how much blood has been spilled just because people in the West love diamonds. The story of Blood Diamond begins in Solomon Vandy's village, where his family gets taken away by local diamond excavators along with a bunch of his neighbors. Such acts are supposed to be illegal in nature, but it is not uncommon for the local governments to close one eye about such things, simply because diamonds are good business for everybody, though not exactly good news for some. During a raid on one of the mines, Solomon buried a giant piece of diamond in the soils and was captured to a local prison, where he meets Danny Archer - played by Leonardo DiCaprio - a diamond salesman that smuggles diamonds out of the country. He becomes determined to find the diamond that Solomon buried, and eventually made a deal with Solomon. If he helps Solomon finds his son, Solomon would tell him where the diamond is.

It sounds like a pretty straightforward plot, but the director very skillfully intertwined the state of the country amidst the turbulent storyline. We examine not just the problem of slavery labor, but also the problem of drugs and child soldiers, and how the big diamond countries around the world are purposefully keeping excavated diamonds in underground vaults to keep the prices of diamonds high around the world. Along the way, the two meets a beautiful journalist Maddy Bowen - played by the lovely Jennifer Connelly - who was there to document the situation in Sierra Leone. 

There is an uncompromising way of how Edward Zwick decided to preach this time around. He tends to preach a lot, and sometimes have the tendency to make an already epic movie even more epic - which can be overstating things at times. After all, not everybody likes the way he makes everything so obviously a Hollywood movie rather than a Edward Zwick one. I didn't like The Last Samurai that much, and the bit that turned me off the most was probably how the ONLY Samurai warrior that survived the attack was an American, how coincidental and convenient is that. This time around, this film felt a little bit like an uncensored documentary, with just images and videos of different inhumane acts being flashed out on screen. But that is how Edward Zwick is at times, the same thing was done in his film Glory with Denzel Washington. Still, he does have a thing to say most of the time, and you cannot deny that his films are both raw and poignant at the same time. 

In terms of acting though, this film is pretty much filled with all the top-notch performance you should expect from a cast list like that. Djimon Hounsou is like a volcano in this movie, always erupting the storyline ever forward with his single-minded passion to find his wife and son. He is the driving force of the plot most of the time, always pushing the story forward by landing himself in unfavorable positions because of one thing - he loves his son. On the other side of the spectrum, there is Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Danny Archer. Danny Archer is probably not the kind of character you'd find yourself rooting for at all. He is proud, he is selfish, and he does anything within his power to attain his goals. He comes first in anything, but at the same time we find out why he is such a cold-hearted person in the film. The country has roughened up his attitude towards killing people, but throughout the film we see him unraveling slowly and softening up. Both characters receive a fairly equal amount of screen time and character development, but the same cannot really be said about Jennifer Connelly's character, I feel. I just felt that she was there because they needed a female lead, and the role of a female journalist needed to be filled. Nonetheless, she gave a solid enough performance, and it's always nice to see her onscreen most of the time.

Blood Diamond is really a mixed bag, I feel, like those bags of peanuts you get on the plane with a bunch of different flavors inside, but neither of them has enough quantity. There are times when you feel like the director is trying to tell you too many things within the short span of the film, but all of them are very real issues and very pressing in nature. You get that stark and heavy taste in one scene, and then you are forced to taste another cup of coffee altogether a few seconds later, and you never really get involved in any of them at the end of the day. Still, the lessons learned from this film are very real, they are very close to heart, and definitely the kind of lessons that stick with you no matter what. 

At the end of the day, this film may feel like it was being made by a guy who is just sick and tired of the situation in Africa, and wants the world to hear about what he has to say. Because of that, this film has a running time that may work against it, but it didn't feel very long for me. What this film did that The Last Samurai did not was to work on emotions, and it certainly built upon itself throughout the film, which wasn't what the former movie did. In The Last Samurai, emotions were built and were left to simmer down in a corner, but much of it was probably because of the fact that most of us were lost in translation. Besides, the action in that movie never really took off either, while in Blood Diamond we were treated to more than just action, but the horrors and gore we get to see in a war zone. You get that emotional attachment, something which I felt was lacking. If The Last Samurai was a Hollywood movie meant to make money, this film was probably a film made to be shown in schools around the world. Despite those however, both of them were really well made films through and through.

I suppose despite its flaws, Blood Diamond is still a film that has successfully garnered a recommendation chop from me, because I feel like people need to know about such issues going on in Africa. It is a great way for people who are too lazy to read the magazines and the papers to get a glimpse of what is happening across the Indian Ocean. Not a lot of movies, to me, can be hard to stomach. But this film is definitely one of those films that compelled me to look away. Nonetheless, watch this film at least once. Not because you want to, but because you need to.