Blood Diamond review by Philip Mattix

     Blood Diamond is set in Sierra Leone 1999 in the midst of the Sierra Leone civil war. In this movie Solomon Vandy, a local fisherman, finds a diamond and teams up with Danny Archer, a diamond smuggler ex mercenary, to get the diamond and  Solomon's  family out of Africa.
     This movie really showed the effects of war on the people of Africa. There are multiple scenes in the movie where the RUF attacks villages. The villagers are slaughtered, mutilated and taken prisoner for forced labor or child soldiers.
     Diamonds are illegally exported out of Sierra Leone and  these resources are used to finance the war. this movie also shows the RUF brainwashing children to turn them into child soldiers. these children are given drugs,alcohol and taught to kill. In A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah goes into great detail and description on the making of child soldiers. Reading his book and watching Blood Diamond can be a good  resource of understanding the topic on child soldiers.
   The most complex,interesting and deepest character in this movie was Danny Archer. He is a battle harden ex special forces soldier who works as a mercenary smuggling diamonds out of the country.  This  antihero is characterized by being  cynical, greedy,selfish, only caring about himself and what he can get out of anything, anyone or situation. We are given a good insight on his character traits through his quotes. " I like to get kissed before i get fucked.'' ''God left this place long ago" referring to Africa and ''T.I.A." ,This is Africa'' ,You come here with your laptop computers, your malaria medicine and you little bottles of hand sanitizer and think you can change the outcome, huh?. Despite his selfishness and fuck the world attitude he does go through a character transformation at the end of the movie. In the end be fore he dies he gives the diamond back to Solomon, helps him get his family out of Africa. And gives essential information to Maddy Bowen for her story about conflict diamonds.Blood Diamond is a great movie with a powerful message. I would recommend it.
   

The movie reviews on MRQE.com were mostly on the positive side praising the quality of the film work and its message. The more critical reviews complained about the length of the film, story and plot gaps and cliques. What i learned from these reviews was that some people were mostly concerned with film quality and other technical mistakes. I  personally agree with the statement that ''Zwick is a rare director that can still pull enjoyment and a powerful message out of such a film, and does so gracefully.