Excellent effort from Hollywood on a difficult subject

Rating: 9/10 (9 December 2007)

This was an excellent movie, and though not without its flaws, does as good a job as Hollywood could ever be expected of doing with such a film. In seeing this movie, I have to say it is what I did not see that I appreciate most. I did not see an action film, although there were certainly those elements, it did not overwhelm. I found the violence did not get to be overdone, although it is a terribly violent film. I did see elements of the rawness of war, although not perhaps enough. I am sure they could not do more without alienating the audience. They presented a number of different viewpoints and interestingly a subtle commentary on some underlying ethnic issues in the diamond industry and Africa and insight into the real problems of the diamond industry, especially in that the are horded to be artificially scarce; any diamond creating a market for war. As regards the technical elements of the film, direction is quite good as one would expect from my comments above, and script writing and production are excellent. I think Connelly's character needed more development and is a bit too pristine. I think the direction lacked focus a bit here. DiCaprio is good, but the accent is awful. Hounsou is excellent. All in all, a film worth watching if one can accept the violence.