Worth your money - but don't compare it to 'The Constant Gardener'

Rating: 10/10 (24 January 2007)

Because they are very different stories, and very different styles. The Constant Gardener was an artistic, touching personal story about love and loss. Yes it did cover the same general themes of African's being used and abused by big companies and western interests. But at the center of that story was the very personal story of loss. This was a thriller, it was more visually violent, and instead of a diplomat, it had a mercenary at it's center. The Constant Gardener was an unusual story, both in plot, and also in the way it was told, with it's fractured time and the subliminal fear of big invisible evils. In 'Blood Diamond' there is more overt violence, and also may I say a far more challenging role for the lead actor. And DiCaprio does a fine job, his accent did go a couple of times - but have any of you tried to mimic a South African accent? Not an easy thing to do because the sound has been distilled from different languages, and the accent itself changes in different areas of the country, and if you listened DiCaprio left Zimbabwe as a child so his accent was SA, and it was good in my opinion. This movie also attempts to bring in more difficult stories, like child soldiers, the exploitation of Africans by Africans - to the benefit of the west and also the rehabilitation of people who have seen and done terrible things. The movie should perhaps instead be compared with the South African movie 'Tsotsi', which was also a story of greed, money, retribution and the possibility of redemption. The main characters in both also lost their parents and knew violence from an early age.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this film is that those who see it will leave knowing more about the lives of average people in these conflicts, and hopefully like Hotel Rwanda it will raise awareness of a tragic conflict that has not only wasn't talked about enough at the time, but has also been forgotten in the west.