serious film but not trite and very exciting

Rating: 10/10 (24 January 2007)

About the trade in diamonds in Sierra leone during the civil war there, which made me go to google and find out more. But the actual plot is very well executed so that it is a very exciting film about which group will be able to recover a precious pink diamond first. The film it also raises questions about what makes us think of someone as "good" or "bad" and the answer is much less trite or superficial than i would have expected. The dialogue is noticeably better than in many American films, very true to life and sometimes sharp and funny. Loved the soundtrack as well, although wouldn't recommend the film to people sensitive to noise/gunshots. Some advance criticism has said that it's just a Hollywood movie tackling a serious issue, but that is surely better than a comedy movie about horrible drunken bigots (Borat) and strangely far less depressing. I think they have done an excellent job of making the audience think about the kind of thing that in a magazine you would try to turn the page on, without being preachy or despondent. Also Leonardo di Caprio should get the Oscar - although i know he's up against Forest Whitaker, difficult. The kind of film that makes me wish i was still young enough to take crazy risks and do something better than sitting at my bank desk looking up movies on the net that I've just seen! But hey, I'm still younger than the character in the movie...let's go to Africa.