intense

Rating: 9/10 (9 July 2008)

An amoral adventurer in search of a fabulous treasure is a common theme in film, but Blood Diamond isn't interested in mindless fun, instead attempting to create a truer version of that Hollywood fantasy set in a world of horrible brutality.
The result can be upsetting and hard to watch, as gun-toting rebels or soldiers mow down people indiscriminately. Even in a scene where 30 people die, the movie does a good job of making you feel each death, showing you individual humans desperately trying to escape rather than the standard extras falling down of so many movies.
Blood Diamond does not take a simplistic view of the violence. The blame is placed on both rich diamond merchants and on the Africans themselves, but more than that the blame is on people who simply accept the situation, represented in the movie by the phrase "This is Africa" to consign the madness to the status quo.
But the movie also says something can be done, and while the main do-gooder is a rather clichéd role - an idealistic American journalist trying to expose corruption and save the world - the message that there is hope keeps Blood Diamond from being too depressing.
In spite of a fairly uncompromising portrayal of violence and a strong political viewpoint, this is still very much a Hollywood movie, with big name stars and personalities far less complex than the situation they find themselves in. I could see people objecting to this, but I think it works, both because it gives the viewer something to hold onto in a sea of madness and because it fits in nicely with the movie as a through-the-looking-glass version of old Hollywood treasure-adventure films.
I avoid really depressing movies, and I don't know if I read what I just wrote before seeing Blood Diamond if I could have brought myself to watch it, but it is well worth watching, a powerful, moving experience. Hopefully it did some good in terms of bringing these problems to light.