Great Exciting Action Movie With Some Brilliant Acting and Dramatic Storyline

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 2007)

Blood Diamond is probably the last great film of 2006, a pretty great year for movies. Directed by Edward Zwick and written by Charles Levatt, it is an action flick, I guess. Or a drama. Or both.
It centers on a man named Solomon Vandy (played to perfection by Djimon Honsou) who finds a large "pink" diamond in the rivers of Sierra Leone. Suddenly, his camp is invaded by government soldiers, but Vandy buries the diamond just before he is taken into custody. Meanwhile, a diamond smuggler, Danny Archer (in another great performance by DiCaprio) is caught smuggling diamonds across the border to Lebanon (?), and is jailed for a short period. He meets Vandy in prison and decides to use him to 1)find the pink and steal it, and 2)maybe, just maybe find Solomon's family (who's eldest son is kidnapped and brainwashed by rebel soldiers).
They set off on a journey across Africa, and with the help of journalist Matty Bowen (in yet another great acting job by Jennefer Connelly), they search for the pink, as well as Solomon's family.
As Richard Roeper stated: "Edward Zwick is the master of politically correct thrillers". Well, I wholeheartedly agree with him. Glory, The Last Samaurai, and the Siege were spectacular and suspenseful pictures with great acting, and I'm going to chalk this up onto that list as well. There are some great action set pieces that had me on the edge of my seat. But Zwick and cinematographer Eduardo Serra make it look easy.
James Newton Howard also contributes to the film with his wonderful score. His strings work and the African vocalist pieces are great, adding to the grim mood of the film. On a similar subject, the sound design is great as well. You can actually feel the bullets zipping by on screen with Christopher Assells' sound editing--it works as a complete synchronous style with Howard's score.
But I will hand it to the actors. They are the ones who truly delivered this film. This is DiCaprio's second film of the year (the first being The Departed), and he gives a great performance as the cynical Danny Archer.
Djimon Honsou is one of my favorite actors, so, naturally, I liked his work in this. But it isn't that I simply "liked" his work in this--he gave THE best performance in the movie. He handles the role of Solomon Vandy as if he IS Solomon. A truly moving character.
This is Jennefer Connelly's second best performance in her career I think (the first being Requiem For A Dream). She plays Matty Bowen, journalist for Vital Affairs magazine. She shows how great an actress she can actually be, but it will never top her Requiem acting.
Overall, this movie is violent, gritty, suspenseful, poignant, sad, and long. Clocking in at two hours and forty minutes, it is worth every scene.
Great film that should be nominated for Best Picture.