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Journal 5 Blood Diamond review by Jami Riegel
             



              This movie was very heart wrenching. It's a sad but true fact that there are young innocent children being taken by the RUF and made into killers, drug addicts, and alcoholics by heartless rebels that only care about killing and getting those diamonds to sell. And who they did not kill they were forced to work in the river collecting diamonds. But if they didn't think you were worthy of killing or finding diamonds they would cut off one of their hands. 

               The Blood Diamond educates people that their precious diamond on their hand or around their neck is a result of thousands of families in Africa getting either killed, forced to work by gun point, and of course children being captured and taught to kill.  People need to realize diamonds are not that important that people get killed over them. Diamonds are just  material things peoples lives are not.

                 I would say the most meaningful character for me was Solomon. He first thinks his family dead when they were attacked by the RUF but once he finds his wife and two kids in a village are safe and protected he realizes Dia (his son) is not with them, then finds out he was captured. That becomes his only thought. To get his son back no matter the cost. He finally finds him but Dia is not to eager to go with his father. That shows that the RUF have manipulated Dia so much that all they know now is to kill. Even if it's family.

         A few of the reviews were saying how the movie was not well done. That is all they cared about. I found one review that understood the meaning behind it though. It states "Violence is an overused word. Primarily we associate it with fantasy, either in the gory netherworlds of the Hostel or Saw movies or the escapist universe of Bond and Bourne, where tension and excitement overshadow the realities of torture, mutilation and death. Violence, for the most part, is about the human capacity to hurt others; and about the way it destroys lives, communities and countries. "