A combination of Hotel Rowanda and Indiana Jones

Rating: 10/10 (13 December 2006)

Best picture of the year. Takes a true and depressing little known (or cared about) bloody civil war in Africa as backdrop for an exciting adventure in quest of a very rare and large pink diamond.What adds to the film is the realities of diamond smuggling and ignorance of the costs in human terms of wearing those stones. No wonder Mervis has been advertising that their diamonds are not from conflict area which is Sierra Leone in the late 1990's.Leonard DeCaprio is very convincing as a diamond smuggler fighting his own deeper conscience and greed.By showing children conscript soldiers being brainwashed and killing with out regret is probably the most chilling part of the nonfictional aspect of the movie, reinforced at the end by current brutal numerical statistics. The soundtrack is stirring and the photography graphic and real.In a haunting way you leave the theater feeling guilty of something,not sure what.