Good Film / Flawed History

Rating: 8/10 (28 April 2007)

Blood Diamond is an enjoyable action movie. It's set against the backdrop of of Sierra Leone's civil war of the 1990s and is a story of child soldiers, anarchy and savagery. The film incorporates a mixture of fact and made-up history. However the film serves a useful role in showing the country's descent into hell. Over a ten-year period 500,000 people  about one tenth of the population  were murdered, maimed or raped. The film sticks closely to Hollywood storytelling conventions so is tries to manufacture a feel-good ending and turns a diamond / gun smuggler (DiCaprio) into a hero.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone sell diamonds to buy guns. Djimon Hounsou plays Solomon Vandy a fisherman whose life is changed when the RUF arrive and start killing and hacking off the limbs of his fellow villagers. Vandy is kidnapped and made to work in the rebel operated mines. He finds and hides a huge rock before being rescued by government troops. He is held in a prison and meets Danny Archer (DiCaprio) who wants to sell the diamond while Vandy just wants to find his wife and kids. The film is about their attempts to find the diamond and save Vandy's family.
Danny starts the movie as a tough and cynical Rhodesian mercenary and diamond smuggler. DiCaprio is a big star so his character becomes more sympathetic as the film wears on. He ends the movie as a soft hearted guy prepared to risk his life for others. Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) is the female interest. She starts the movie as a hard-bitten war reporter looking for a story. She latches onto Danny and seems to fall for him. Leonardo's accent isn't quite right, he sounds like an Afrikaaner rather than a Rhodesian / Zimbabwean.
All Hollywood movies have to have bad guys and the film blames a fictitious British diamond company and a group of ruthless South African mercenaries. This is inaccurate. In the real world the RUF forced thousands of civilians into work gangs harvesting the stones, which they handed to Charles Taylor, neighboring Liberia's infamous warlord, in return for guns. The film states that Sierra Leone is now at peace and implied it was because of lobbying from the guy from 7th Heaven (playing an invented character called Ambassador Walker). The implication is that the U.S. helped protect Africa from greedy and cynical Brits.
The reality is that Global Witness, a small British charity first publicized the ill-effects of conflict diamonds. Tony Blair's father taught at Fourah Bay university in Freetown. When the British based firm, De Beers stopped buying conflict diamonds there is evidence that many were merely diverted to Tel Aviv and Mumbai. In May 2000 Blair sent 2,000 British troops and a naval task force to Sierra Leone. The move saved Freetown from yet more bloodshed and led to the defeat of the RUF.
If you ignore the film's fallacious history lesson it works as a slick and exciting action movie. We still await a film that can properly explain the root causes of continent's problems. Sierra Leone is a poor country and it's people need money so people in the West should continue to buy diamonds.