Blood Diamond [Blu-ray]
Starring: Leonard DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer ConnellyStudio: Warner Home Video
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 143 minutes
DVD Release: June 5th 2007
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DVD Review
Leonardo DiCaprio puts a handsome face on an ugly industry: In parts of Africa, diamond mining fuels civil warfare, killing thousands of innocents and drafting preteen children as vicious soldiers. DiCaprio (The Departed) plays Danny Archer, a white African soldier-turned-diamond-smuggler who gets wind of a large raw jewel found by Solomon Vandy, a native fisherman (Djimon Hounsou, In America) recently escaped from enslavement by a brutal rebel leader. Archer offers a deal: He'll help Vandy find his war-scattered family if Vandy will share the diamond with him. Drawn into this web of exploitation is journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly, Little Children), who agrees to help if Archer will tell her the details of how conflict diamonds make their way into the hands of the corporations who sell them to the Western world. DiCaprio is compelling because he never flinches from Archer's utter ruthlessness; Archer ends up doing the morally justifiable thing, but only because his desperate greed has led him to it. Hounsou and Connelly, though saddled with all the moral and political speeches, rise above the cant and keep the movie's treacherously formulaic plot rooted in human characters. But in the end, the story won't stick with you as much as the dead stillness in the child soldiers' eyes; the horror of African civil strife refuses to be contained by Blood Diamond's uplifting message--and the movie is all the more potent as a result. --Bret Fetzer
User Reviews
A powerful and vioelnt movie - Rating: 3/5
While not a favorite of the African Tourist Board, Blood Diamond tells an important and violent story. The 3 leads are all good here but the images that will remain are the violent scenes, many involving children. The movie could have been a great one but gets hindered by 3 Hollywood cliches that find themselves in the plot:
1. While DeCaprio is good in his part, he does struggle with the Rhodesian accent. Aren't there a lot of real Rhodesians who would just nail that accent?
2. The 3 main characters are a diamond smuggler, a simple fisherman, and a young journalist. Yet they make more miraculous escapes than Superman, Rambo and Wonder Woman here.
3. The overall "Let's Blame America" tone of the movie. The movie cites America as the dominant consumer of these diamonds- HOGWASH. The fact is that the EU, the Midle East, and Asia are all major consumers of diamonds today. Gone are the days when the US was the dominant consumer of anything, except maybe lies that single them out for the blame. Even in 1999, when the movie was set, it would have been much more truthful to say that the US was one of many major users of diamonds.
In bringing the plight of Africa to the attention of the world, the movie deserves great credit but in loading down the story with typical Hollywood cliches and bias, I can only give it 3 stars.
Intense Great Movie! - Rating: 5/5
This is a very intense, taut drama/action movie that goes at a very rapid pace. Good performances by Leonard DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, and Dijimon Hounsou. Diamonds, guns, trying to avoid being killed..great story. Blu-ray transfer GREAT.
Blame American teens for Africa!! - Rating: 2/5
Blood Diamonds is racist, anti-Semetic, anti-American, pro-EU, and pro-Marxist.
Blood Diamonds actually starts off as a fascinating, graphically realistic portrayal of ethnic slayings along Africa's northwest coast where diamonds are mined. There could have been a compelling story here, but, unfortunately, Hollywood is at the helm so do not expect anything artistic, creative or even close to factual. Although Leonardo DiCaprio is palatable as a Rhodesian white man (his accent comes and goes) trying to make a quick buck off the diamond trade, his character is a bit too sacrosanct to be realistic. It seems his character is made to be morally superior as a convenience for the filmmakers to spew their Hollywood-style platitudes at every opportunity, regardless if they are completely out of character or irrelevant to the scene. In one scene, DiCaprio and co-star Jennifer Connelly (the only white people in the entire region apparently) are at a bar when, suddenly, Bill Clinton appears on the bar's TV screen apologizing for his infamous sex scandal. Connelly's character (she's a journalist, by the way) announces that no one should care who the president is sleeping with; there are far too many problems in the world to worry about. Hint: we're supposed to feel guilty for not doing more to save Africa.
After this jarring scene, we are subsequently informed that the horrific violence along the west coast of Africa is to be blamed on--you got it!--Americans (although a British EU official hints early on that Americans buy 2/3 of all Africa's diamonds). Several times DiCaprio's character rants that he wouldn't need to smuggle diamonds if there wasn't such a huge demand in the Great Satan. But it's not the science or technology industry that DiCaprio lambastes (the largest consumers of diamonds in the United States), it's teen-age American girls in pink dresses who demand diamonds to wear to their proms! I am not making this up. This is what the filmmakers want us tot believe. (Based on many of the reviews on amazon of this film, they have succeeded in convincing people consumerism is the evil culprit.)
It's not that Hollywood millionaires ever buy diamonds. Yea, right! As usual, Hollywood points its finely manicured finger at those dirty Americans who live somewhere between Hollywood palaces and Manhattan aeries. Factually, Americans do not purchase 2/3 of Africa's diamonds, despite the EU official in the film stating so. America doesn't even out buy Scandinavia or France when it comes to diamonds. You might even say this film is anti-Semetic since Jews overwhelmingly dominate the diamond trade--but most jewish diamond merchants live in Europe and the UK. America's interests and presence in Africa is practically non-existent (Madgadishu was an anomaly--and totally altruistic). Not once do the filmmakers criticize Africans themselves for the brutal violence. Not even the African dictators and corrupt war generals are challenged in this film. Not even the Europeans who have a far larger presence in West Africa than the Unite States (after all, Africa was extensively colonized by Europe) are vilified. It's teen-age American girls who are the villains. Every time you see some African tribesmen chop off someone's hand with a machete, we're supposed to picture those bourgeois American teens with their consumerism and selfishness frolicking in pink dresses. (Don't worry, it's not the UN's, the EU's or Africa's fault--it's teeny boppers from America who are causing the bloodshed!).
Okay, so the filmmakers do mention Belgians chopped off some Africans' hands for the sake of the diamond trade. Why not harp on that, instead of American consumerism. Evil American consumerism does not play a role in West Afrida. The entire diamond industry is almost entirely contained in Belgium, and the UK. London is the diamond capital of the world.
Hollywood apparently cannot make a movie unless it blames America for whatever tragedy is taking place somewhere in the world, even when the United States has a limited, if any, presence there. (China has more a presence in Africa than the United States). Nowhere in the film do the filmmakers take France to the task of explaining its military's presence in a region that just happens to be loaded with diamonds and cocoa. NO WAR FOR CHOCOLATE!
And typical of Hollywood elitism, there is a genuine level of racism throughout the film, although, of course, completely unintended. Despite being surrounded by millions of beautiful black African women, DiCaprio only has eyes of the lily white Connelly--the only white woman in the entire film. Why couldn't DiCaprio fall for a gorgeous native African woman?
The real victim in this film is not Africa--it's art. Again, the preaching Left has foregone art for the sake of their religion of anti-Americanism. Hating America is endemic to the art world. You cannot escape it in books, theaters, galleries, music or movie theaters. Stories come to dead halts when characters suddenly engage in soliloquies of how America and capitalism are evil. No matter how much money they lose of films, the plutocrats in Hollywood just won't give it up. It's a tragedy. It's a tragedy further that fools buy into Hollywood versions of facts.
Great movie - Rating: 4/5
It's unfortunate there has to be a winner and loser in the high definition DVD formats. This HD-DVD offers great video and audio, plus it has an internet bonus. A good story about the effects of diamond smuggling and outstanding acting by all participants. However, it appears HD-DVD isn't going to survive, but my Toshiba AC-3 will stay in action for a long time. Besides the HD-DVD, it improves the video and audio quality of regular DVDs. I'm pulling for HD-DVD to pull out at least a tie. What's the matter with players, such as Samsung and LG has introduced, that plays both? And why won't the movie industry support both formats? Well, of course, the reason is cost. But it doesn't make sense to leave the million-plus buyers of HD-DVD players high and dry.
One of the better movie - Rating: 3/5
Saw this in the theater and bought the bluray to see it again. Image quality is excellent, enjoyed the movie. The only bad part about the bluray was that the extras were in standard definition. When you buy a bluray and expect it to be hidef and parts of it is in standard definition, it is annoying and unacceptable. The movie got a good score from me, but the content gets a 2. So overal I'll give it a 3.
