Blood Diamond (film)
Encyclopedia
Blood Diamond is a 2006 political thriller 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 diamond
s mined in Africa
n war zones and sold to finance conflicts, and thereby profit warlords and diamond companies across the world.
Set during the Sierra Leone Civil War
in 1992-2002, the film shows a country torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. It also portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to discourage them from voting in upcoming elections.
The film's ending, in which a conference is held concerning blood diamonds, is in reference to an actual meeting that took place in Kimberley
, South Africa 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. The film received mixed, but generally favourable reviews.
fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou
) was captured by the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF) rebels during a raid and subsequent massacre of his village in Shenge
, Sierra Leone
. Instead of cutting off his hands, the rebels put him to work as a miner in the diamond fields under the command of warlord
Captain Poison (David Harewood
), while his son Dia (Kagiso Kuypers) is conscripted
into the RUF and brainwashed into becoming a hardened, cold-blooded, killer. Captain Poison uses the diamonds to fund their war effort, often trading them directly for automatic weapons. One day, Solomon recovers an enormous pink diamond while working. Attempting to keep it for himself, he buries it in a nearby riverbank, unobserved by the guards. An infuriated Poison discovers the truth but before he can act on this knowledge, the Sierra Leonean Army
assaults the mines. Vandy, the captain, and most of Poison's fighters are captured and subsequently imprisoned in Freetown
.
Meanwhile, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio
), a white Rhodesian
gunrunner (from today's Zimbabwe
), is arrested attempting to smuggle diamonds into Liberia
. Archer had been transporting the diamonds to an Afrikaner
mercenary
, Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo
), his former commander in the 32nd Battalion
, the most decorated unit of the South African Border War
. Coetzee is in turn employed by Tiara Diamond Company executive Rudolph Van de Kaap (Marius Weyers
) and his deputy, Rupert Simmons (Michael Sheen
). While being held in the same Freetown prison as Solomon Vandy, Archer learns of the pink diamond's existence.
Archer manages to arrange his own release from prison and also pulls the strings necessary for Solomon to be freed, hoping that he will lead him to this valuable diamond. In the meantime, the latter gets a job working at a Freetown Hotel while Archer visits his contacts in South Africa
, including Colonel Coetzee. The Afrikaner is angry and frustrated that their previous smuggling operation was foiled. He demands that he receive some of the profits from this pink diamond once it is eventually recovered. Danny remarks that he plans to use his share of the money to leave the Dark Continent once and for all. However, Coetzee disagrees, referencing a Shona
legend that the soil of Africa is red because of all the blood that has been spilled by people fighting over the land. He implies that both of them will never leave Africa because, after all, Africa is in their blood.
Returning to Sierra Leone, Archer locates Solomon and offers to help him find his long lost family, especially Dia, if he agrees to lead him to the diamond. While they discuss the issue, however, the RUF rebels launch a massive attack on Freetown and capture it following a bloody battle. Archer and Solomon survive the initial carnage long enough to steal away from the ruined city by night.
In Forécariah
, Guinea
, American journalist and humanitarian Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly
), allows Archer and Vandy to infiltrate the Kono
with her press convoy in exchange for information on her current story exposing the flow of "blood diamonds" out of Africa. Archer promptly provides proof to Maddy that Van de Kaap and his Tiara Diamond Company control the market by illegally stockpiling vast amounts of diamonds to drive up demand. But trouble catches up with Danny and Solomon yet again when the press convoy comes under attack by murderous insurgents. Together with Bowen, they narrowly escape and find their way to an encampment where Colonel Coetzee and his private army are preparing for battle. Coetzee intends to get his hands on the pink diamond no matter whom he must fight to get it.
Archer and Vandy eventually leave the camp while Maddy boards a plane evacuating foreigners out of the conflict zone. The duo reach Captain Poison's diamond fields, which has been recaptured by the rebels. Solomon then makes his own ill-fated bid to rescue a brainwashed Dia, who refuses to acknowledge his father. Archer radios in the mine's coordinates to Coetzee's mercenaries, who subsequently launch an air strike on Poison's men via an Mi-24
Helicopter Gunship. Amidst the chaos, Solomon finds and kills Poison with a shovel. As the outgunned and now leaderless RUF force tries to flee into the jungle, they are slaughtered in an ambush by a mercenary strike team on the ground. With the battle won, Colonel Coetzee has Dia rounded up and holds him at gunpoint. He threatens to murder the boy unless Solomon retrieves the pink diamond immediately. After it is unearthed, Danny Archer realizes that the colonel is planning to execute Vandy and his son anyway once he is in possession of the valuable stone. He preemptively kills Coetzee and two of his soldiers, only to be mortally wounded in the process. Dia then takes advantage of the situation to hold a pistol on his father and the injured Archer. After an emotional discussion, however, Solomon manages to convince his son of his own retained innocence and Dia agrees to return home with him, having overcome his mental conditioning.
The three of them flee from the remaining mercenaries and make their way from the valley towards an airstrip atop a nearby ridge where Archer has prearranged to rendezvous with a local pilot, Nabil (Jimi Mistry
), in his GA8 Airvan. Before they reach the ridge, Danny collapses from his wounds and hands over the diamond to Solomon, instructing him to take it and use its profits for himself and the benefit of his family. Archer then uses an assault rifle to hold off their pursuers as the two others escape in the plane.
Bleeding and barely able to breathe, Archer uses his satellite phone to make a final call to Maddy Bowen and ask her to assist Solomon. Realizing that he is dying, Maddy expresses her sorrow that she is not able to be there with him in person. The Rhodesian smuggler replies calmly that he is already where he needs to be, then grasps a handful of red African soil stained with his own blood. Soil in hand, he dies peacefully looking out upon a beautiful Sierra Leonean landscape.
Shortly afterwards, Solomon meets with Rupert Simmons, who promises that the Tiara Diamond Company will arrange for his family to be brought to England in exchange for the diamond. Maddy secretly photographs the deal and later publishes a magazine article titled "Blood Diamonds: A Trail of Terror from the Jungles to the Jeweller's" in which she exposes the trade in "conflict" or "blood" diamonds, detailing Rudolph Van de Kaap's criminal actions and ruining him and the TDC. Later, Solomon is seen preparing to tell of his experiences at a conference on blood diamonds in Kimberley
, South Africa. His entrance to the conference meeting hall is met with a standing ovation as the film ends.
gave the film a score of 62% based on reviews from 210 critics, or an average score of 6.3/10, with the site's consensus stating; "Blood Diamond overcomes poor storytelling with its biting commentary and fine performances.". Metacritic
gave the film an average score of 64% based on reviews from 39 critics.
, 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.
More recently, the New York Post
reported that Warner Bros. Pictures
had promised that 27 actors who were amputees would receive prosthetics once the film shoot was done. 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 maximise public relations
. In the meantime, a private charity from the Eastern Cape in South Africa assisted in supplying prosthetics to the amputees.
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
."
, and won the Soundtrack of the Year at the 2008 Classical BRIT Awards
.
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 with a R rating in the USA and a rating of MA in Australia
.
Edward Zwick
Edward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker and film producer noted for his epic films about social and racial issues. He has been described as a "throwback to an earlier era, an extremely cerebral director whose movies consistently feature fully rounded characters, difficult moral issues, and plots...
and starring Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
, Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
and Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Diaw Hounsou is a Beninese actor and model. As an actor, Hounsou has been nominated for two Academy Awards.-Early life:Djimon Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Benin, in 1964, to lbertine and Pierre Hounsou, a cook. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of thirteen with his brother, Edmond....
. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s mined in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n war zones and sold to finance conflicts, and thereby profit warlords and diamond companies across the world.
Set during the Sierra Leone Civil War
Sierra Leone Civil War
The Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front , with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia , intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government...
in 1992-2002, the film shows a country torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. It also portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to discourage them from voting in upcoming elections.
The film's ending, in which a conference is held concerning blood diamonds, is in reference to an actual meeting that took place in Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
, South Africa 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. The film received mixed, but generally favourable reviews.
Plot
In 1999 MendeMende people
The Mende people are one of the two largest and most dominant ethnic group in Sierra Leone, along with the Temne. The Mende make up 30% of Sierra Leone's total population or 1,932,015 members...
fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Diaw Hounsou is a Beninese actor and model. As an actor, Hounsou has been nominated for two Academy Awards.-Early life:Djimon Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Benin, in 1964, to lbertine and Pierre Hounsou, a cook. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of thirteen with his brother, Edmond....
) was captured by the Revolutionary United Front
Revolutionary United Front
The Revolutionary United Front was a rebel army that fought a failed eleven-year war in Sierra Leone, starting in 1991 and ending in 2002. It later developed into a political party, which existed until 2007...
(RUF) rebels during a raid and subsequent massacre of his village in Shenge
Shenge
Shenge is coastal town in the Atlantic ocean located in Moyamba District in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. The inhabitant of Shenge are predominantly fisherman and the town is one of the biggest fish producers in Sierra Leone. The town of Shenge can only be reached by helicopter or boat due...
, Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
. Instead of cutting off his hands, the rebels put him to work as a miner in the diamond fields under the command of warlord
Warlord
A warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...
Captain Poison (David Harewood
David Harewood
David Harewood is a British actor.-Biography:David Harewood was born and grew up in the Small Heath area of Birmingham, England, where he attended St. Benedict's Junior School and Washwood Heath Comprehensive School. As a schoolboy, he excelled at all sports—from sprinting to basketball to rugby...
), while his son Dia (Kagiso Kuypers) is conscripted
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
into the RUF and brainwashed into becoming a hardened, cold-blooded, killer. Captain Poison uses the diamonds to fund their war effort, often trading them directly for automatic weapons. One day, Solomon recovers an enormous pink diamond while working. Attempting to keep it for himself, he buries it in a nearby riverbank, unobserved by the guards. An infuriated Poison discovers the truth but before he can act on this knowledge, the Sierra Leonean Army
Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces
The Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces is the armed forces of Sierra Leone, responsible for the territorial security of Sierra Leone's border and defending the national interests of Sierra Leone, within the framework of its international obligations...
assaults the mines. Vandy, the captain, and most of Poison's fighters are captured and subsequently imprisoned in Freetown
Freetown
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...
.
Meanwhile, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
), a white Rhodesian
Whites in Zimbabwe
White Zimbabweans are people from the southern African country Zimbabwe who identify themselves as white...
gunrunner (from today's Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
), is arrested attempting to smuggle diamonds into Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
. Archer had been transporting the diamonds to an Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
mercenary
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
, Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo
Arnold Vosloo
Arnold Vosloo is a South African American actor, best-known for playing Imhotep in The Mummy and its 2001 sequel The Mummy Returns, as well as the role of the superhero Darkman in the sequel Darkman II: The Return of Durant and its 1996 sequel, Darkman III: Die Darkman Die...
), his former commander in the 32nd Battalion
South African 32 Battalion
32 Battalion was a special light infantry battalion of the South African Army, composed of black and white commissioned and enlisted personnel...
, the most decorated unit of the South African Border War
South African Border War
The South African Border War, commonly referred to as the Angolan Bush War in South Africa, was a conflict that took place from 1966 to 1989 in South-West Africa and Angola between South Africa and its allied forces on the one side and the Angolan government, South-West Africa People's...
. Coetzee is in turn employed by Tiara Diamond Company executive Rudolph Van de Kaap (Marius Weyers
Marius Weyers
Marius Weyers is a South African actor. He received international attention playing Andrew Steyn in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy . He recently starred in Blood Diamond.-Selected filmography:...
) and his deputy, Rupert Simmons (Michael Sheen
Michael Sheen
Michael Christopher Sheen, OBE , is a Welsh stage and screen actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991...
). While being held in the same Freetown prison as Solomon Vandy, Archer learns of the pink diamond's existence.
Archer manages to arrange his own release from prison and also pulls the strings necessary for Solomon to be freed, hoping that he will lead him to this valuable diamond. In the meantime, the latter gets a job working at a Freetown Hotel while Archer visits his contacts in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, including Colonel Coetzee. The Afrikaner is angry and frustrated that their previous smuggling operation was foiled. He demands that he receive some of the profits from this pink diamond once it is eventually recovered. Danny remarks that he plans to use his share of the money to leave the Dark Continent once and for all. However, Coetzee disagrees, referencing a Shona
Shona people
Shona is the name collectively given to two groups of people in the east and southwest of Zimbabwe, north eastern Botswana and southern Mozambique.-Shona Regional Classification:...
legend that the soil of Africa is red because of all the blood that has been spilled by people fighting over the land. He implies that both of them will never leave Africa because, after all, Africa is in their blood.
Returning to Sierra Leone, Archer locates Solomon and offers to help him find his long lost family, especially Dia, if he agrees to lead him to the diamond. While they discuss the issue, however, the RUF rebels launch a massive attack on Freetown and capture it following a bloody battle. Archer and Solomon survive the initial carnage long enough to steal away from the ruined city by night.
In Forécariah
Forécariah
Forécariah is a Sub-prefecture and town located in western Guinea.Population 21,710 . It is the capital of Forécariah Prefecture.- Famous people :It was the birthplace of Henri Duparc, the film director.- Mining :...
, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
, American journalist and humanitarian Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
), allows Archer and Vandy to infiltrate the Kono
Kono District
Kono District is a district in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Its capital and largest city is Koidu Town. The other major towns in the district include Yengema, Tombodu, Motema, Jaiama-Nimokoro and Sewafe. Kono District is the largest diamond producer in Sierra Leone.The population of Kono...
with her press convoy in exchange for information on her current story exposing the flow of "blood diamonds" out of Africa. Archer promptly provides proof to Maddy that Van de Kaap and his Tiara Diamond Company control the market by illegally stockpiling vast amounts of diamonds to drive up demand. But trouble catches up with Danny and Solomon yet again when the press convoy comes under attack by murderous insurgents. Together with Bowen, they narrowly escape and find their way to an encampment where Colonel Coetzee and his private army are preparing for battle. Coetzee intends to get his hands on the pink diamond no matter whom he must fight to get it.
Archer and Vandy eventually leave the camp while Maddy boards a plane evacuating foreigners out of the conflict zone. The duo reach Captain Poison's diamond fields, which has been recaptured by the rebels. Solomon then makes his own ill-fated bid to rescue a brainwashed Dia, who refuses to acknowledge his father. Archer radios in the mine's coordinates to Coetzee's mercenaries, who subsequently launch an air strike on Poison's men via an Mi-24
Mil Mi-24
The Mil Mi-24 is a large helicopter gunship and attack helicopter and low-capacity troop transport with room for 8 passengers. It is produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and operated since 1972 by the Soviet Air Force, its successors, and by over thirty other nations.In NATO circles the export...
Helicopter Gunship. Amidst the chaos, Solomon finds and kills Poison with a shovel. As the outgunned and now leaderless RUF force tries to flee into the jungle, they are slaughtered in an ambush by a mercenary strike team on the ground. With the battle won, Colonel Coetzee has Dia rounded up and holds him at gunpoint. He threatens to murder the boy unless Solomon retrieves the pink diamond immediately. After it is unearthed, Danny Archer realizes that the colonel is planning to execute Vandy and his son anyway once he is in possession of the valuable stone. He preemptively kills Coetzee and two of his soldiers, only to be mortally wounded in the process. Dia then takes advantage of the situation to hold a pistol on his father and the injured Archer. After an emotional discussion, however, Solomon manages to convince his son of his own retained innocence and Dia agrees to return home with him, having overcome his mental conditioning.
The three of them flee from the remaining mercenaries and make their way from the valley towards an airstrip atop a nearby ridge where Archer has prearranged to rendezvous with a local pilot, Nabil (Jimi Mistry
Jimi Mistry
-Early life:Mistry, was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England to an Indian Hindu father and an Irish Roman Catholic mother. He was brought up a Roman Catholic and attended St. James' Catholic High in Cheadle Hulme before his family moved to Cardiff where he attended Radyr Comprehensive School...
), in his GA8 Airvan. Before they reach the ridge, Danny collapses from his wounds and hands over the diamond to Solomon, instructing him to take it and use its profits for himself and the benefit of his family. Archer then uses an assault rifle to hold off their pursuers as the two others escape in the plane.
Bleeding and barely able to breathe, Archer uses his satellite phone to make a final call to Maddy Bowen and ask her to assist Solomon. Realizing that he is dying, Maddy expresses her sorrow that she is not able to be there with him in person. The Rhodesian smuggler replies calmly that he is already where he needs to be, then grasps a handful of red African soil stained with his own blood. Soil in hand, he dies peacefully looking out upon a beautiful Sierra Leonean landscape.
Shortly afterwards, Solomon meets with Rupert Simmons, who promises that the Tiara Diamond Company will arrange for his family to be brought to England in exchange for the diamond. Maddy secretly photographs the deal and later publishes a magazine article titled "Blood Diamonds: A Trail of Terror from the Jungles to the Jeweller's" in which she exposes the trade in "conflict" or "blood" diamonds, detailing Rudolph Van de Kaap's criminal actions and ruining him and the TDC. Later, Solomon is seen preparing to tell of his experiences at a conference on blood diamonds in Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
, South Africa. His entrance to the conference meeting hall is met with a standing ovation as the film ends.
Cast
- Leonardo DiCaprioLeonardo DiCaprioLeonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
as Daniel "Danny" Archer - Djimon HounsouDjimon HounsouDjimon Diaw Hounsou is a Beninese actor and model. As an actor, Hounsou has been nominated for two Academy Awards.-Early life:Djimon Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Benin, in 1964, to lbertine and Pierre Hounsou, a cook. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of thirteen with his brother, Edmond....
as Solomon Vandy - Jennifer ConnellyJennifer ConnellyJennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
as Maddy Bowen - Kagiso Kuypers as Dia Vandy
- Arnold VoslooArnold VoslooArnold Vosloo is a South African American actor, best-known for playing Imhotep in The Mummy and its 2001 sequel The Mummy Returns, as well as the role of the superhero Darkman in the sequel Darkman II: The Return of Durant and its 1996 sequel, Darkman III: Die Darkman Die...
as Colonel Coetzee - Antony Coleman as Cordell Brown
- Benu Mabhena as Jassie Vandy
- Anointing Lukola as N'Yanda Vandy
- David HarewoodDavid HarewoodDavid Harewood is a British actor.-Biography:David Harewood was born and grew up in the Small Heath area of Birmingham, England, where he attended St. Benedict's Junior School and Washwood Heath Comprehensive School. As a schoolboy, he excelled at all sports—from sprinting to basketball to rugby...
as Captain Poison - Basil Wallace as Benjamin Kapanay
- Jimi MistryJimi Mistry-Early life:Mistry, was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England to an Indian Hindu father and an Irish Roman Catholic mother. He was brought up a Roman Catholic and attended St. James' Catholic High in Cheadle Hulme before his family moved to Cardiff where he attended Radyr Comprehensive School...
as Nabil - Michael SheenMichael SheenMichael Christopher Sheen, OBE , is a Welsh stage and screen actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991...
as Rupert Simmons - Marius WeyersMarius WeyersMarius Weyers is a South African actor. He received international attention playing Andrew Steyn in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy . He recently starred in Blood Diamond.-Selected filmography:...
as Rudolf Van De Kaap - Stephen Collins as Ambassador Walker
- Ntare MwineNtare MwineNtare Guma Mbaho Mwine, is an American-Ugandan stage and film actor, playwright, photographer and documentarian.-Background:Mwine was born in New Hampshire to Ugandan parents in 1967. His father was a Harvard Law School-educated attorney...
as M'Ed - Ato EssandohAto EssandohAto Essandoh is an American television and film actor.Essandoh, who was born in Schenectady, New York, graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1990. He received a BA in chemical engineering from the Cornell University. He is also a playwright, and authored Black Thang which is published in the ...
as Captain Rambo
Critical response
Though Blood Diamond received mixed reviews from critics, it has won popular acclaim through the internet. However, Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gave the film a score of 62% based on reviews from 210 critics, or an average score of 6.3/10, with the site's consensus stating; "Blood Diamond overcomes poor storytelling with its biting commentary and fine performances.". Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
gave the film an average score of 64% based on reviews from 39 critics.
Controversies
When the plot of the film became public, De BeersDe Beers
De Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...
, 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.
More recently, the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
reported that Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
had promised that 27 actors who were amputees would receive prosthetics once the film shoot was done. 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 maximise public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
. In the meantime, a private charity from the Eastern Cape in South Africa assisted in supplying prosthetics to the amputees.
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
Maputo
Maputo, also known as Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. It is known as the City of Acacias in reference to acacia trees commonly found along its avenues and the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was famous for the inscription "This is Portugal" on the walkway of its...
-based international accountancy firm under the supervision of Laws and João Ribeiro, the production managers in Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
."
Awards
The film was nominated for five Academy Awards:- Actor in a Leading Role (DiCaprio)
- Actor in a Supporting Role (Hounsou)
- Film Editing
- Sound Editing
- Sound Mixing (Andy NelsonAndy Nelson (sound engineer)Andy Nelson is an Australian sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and has been nominated for fourteen more in the same category...
, Anna BehlmerAnna BehlmerAnna Behlmer is an American sound engineer. She has been nominated for ten Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. She has worked on over 120 films since 1987.-Selected filmography:* Braveheart * Evita * L.A...
and Ivan SharrockIvan SharrockIvan Sharrock is a British sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and has been nominated for three more in the same category...
)
Soundtrack
Blood Diamond: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. It was composed by James Newton HowardJames Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
, and won the Soundtrack of the Year at the 2008 Classical BRIT Awards
Classical Brit Awards
The Classic BRIT Awards are an annual awards ceremony held in the United Kingdom covering aspects of classical music, and are the classical equivalent of pop music's BRIT Awards....
.
Home video
The DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released in Region 1 format on March 20, 2007. Both a single-disc and a two-disc version are available. High Definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
versions on HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
and Blu-ray have also been released with a R rating in the USA and a rating of MA in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
See also
- Blood diamond
- Child soldiers
- MercenariesMercenaryA mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
- PostcolonialismPostcolonialismPost-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...
- Sierra Leone Civil WarSierra Leone Civil WarThe Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front , with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia , intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government...