how can you be this shallow about a cause that's obviously critical

Rating: 4/10 (27 January 2007)

so you go the movies, you see a shallow, forced reproduction of what goes on in some country in Africa you can't even pronounce the name of... you get shocked, maybe you cry a little, but everything ends alright and the bad guys are caught thanks to a few good people who can do everything with their bare hands... everything is half-explained, everything is stereotyped - the bad guy even wears an eye patch! - and you get the feeling the movie you just saw makes the world a better place, the good guys won and then, as long as you buy your diamonds at big chain stores, which, of course, would never hurt a fly, Africa will be alright... the film touches several critical issues, like blood diamonds, child exploitation, media coverage, refugee camps, among so many others, the most important being the way 1st world governments and corporations exploit 3rd world countries, but everything is so shallow it just goes to show how they just wanted to throw in all the stereotypes they could to make you shocked... before suggesting everything ended fair and calm and peacefully.
the good side is that it makes people uncomfortable about something, and that's always positive when something's out of place. I know more about sierra leone now than I did before... but, by doing it the way it was done, I think this movie is a actually a disservice to the cause it pretends to advocate.