Blood Diamond (2006)
Blood Diamond is a 2006 American political war action thriller film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance conflicts, and thereby profit warlords and diamond companies around the world. Set during the Sierra Leone Civil War of 1991–2002, the film depicts a country torn apart by the struggle between government loyalists and insurgent forces. It also portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels’ amputation of civilians’ hands to discourage them from voting in upcoming elections. The film’s ending, in which a conference is held concerning blood diamonds, refers to a historic meeting that took place in Kimberley, South Africa, in 2000. It led to development of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which sought to certify
the origin of rough diamonds in order to curb the trade in conflict diamonds; the certification scheme has since been mostly abandoned as ineffective.
The film received mainly positive reviews, with praise directed toward the performances of DiCaprio and Hounsou. The film grossed $171 million worldwide and received five Oscar nominations, including Best Actor for DiCaprio and Best Supporting Actor for Hounsou. DiCaprio received a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (also nominated that year in the same category for The Departed). In addition, DiCaprio and Hounsou were nominated for Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role and Outstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role at the 13th Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Plot
The film is set in 1999 in Sierra Leone, a West African nation ravaged by a decade of civil war. Rebel factions such as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) frequently terrorize the countryside, intimidating Mende locals and enslaving many to harvest diamonds, which fund their increasingly successful war effort. One such unfortunate local is fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) from Shenge. While his family escapes the rebels, Vandy is assigned to a workforce overseen by Captain Poison (David Harewood), a ruthless warlord. One morning, while mining a river, Vandy discovers an enormous pink diamond. Captain Poison tries to take the stone, but the area is suddenly raided by government troops.
Vandy buries the stone before being captured. Both Vandy and Poison are incarcerated in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown, along with Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a Rhodesian smuggler and mercenary. Archer, a veteran of the 32 Battalion during the South African Border War, was jailed while trying to smuggle diamonds into Liberia. They were intended for Rudolph van de Kaap (Marius Weyers), a corrupt South African mining executive and a major part of the international diamond industry.
Hearing of the pink diamond in prison, Archer arranges for himself and Vandy to be freed from detention. He travels to Cape Town to meet his employer, Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo), an Afrikaner formerly with the apartheid-era South African Defence Force,
who now commands a private military company. Archer wants the diamond so he can sell it and leave the continent forever, but Coetzee wants it as compensation for Archer’s botched smuggling mission. Archer returns to Sierra Leone, locates Vandy, and offers to help him find his family if he will help recover the diamond.
Meanwhile, RUF insurgents escalate hostilities; Freetown falls to their advance while Vandy’s son Dia is among those rounded up to serve as child soldiers under a liberated Captain Poison. Archer and Vandy narrowly escape to Lungi, where Vandy encounters his wife and daughters in a refugee camp, but finds that his son has been taken by the RUF. Vandy and Archer plan to reach Kono, where Vandy buried the diamond, with an American journalist
named Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), who is attempting to write an exposé on the illicit diamond trade. In exchange for her help, Archer promises to provide her the evidence she needs for her story. Archer and Vandy, disguised as television journalists, travel with Maddy and a press convoy destined for Kono, but the convoy is ambushed by rebels and the three are forced to flee. While trekking through the jungle, they encounter Kamajor militiamen, who take them to the home of a friendly local named Benjamin Kapanay. The kindhearted Kapanay offers to drive them to Kono, though he is injured by an RUF child soldier on the way.
The trio arrive in Kono after a harrowing journey, where Coetzee and his private army—contracted by the Sierra Leone government—prepare to repulse the rebel offensive.
Archer, having developed respect for Maddy, gives her the evidence and forces her to evacuate the country with other civilians; Archer and Vandy, having stolen weapons and supplies from Colonel Coetzee’s army, set out for Captain Poison’s encampment to retrieve the nearby diamond. Along the way, the two men begin fighting over what they perceive as the ultimate goal: Archer wants the diamond, while Vandy cares only about finding his son.
Box office performance
Blood Diamond opened on December 8, 2006, in the United States and Canada in 1,910 theaters. The film ranked at #5 on its opening weekend, accumulating $8,648,324, with a per-theater average of $4,527. The film’s five-day gross was $10,383,962. The film dropped down to #7 on its second weekend, accumulating $6,517,471 in a 24.6% drop from its first weekend, and per-theater average of $3,412. By its third weekend it dropped even more to #12 and made $3,126,379, with its per-theater average being $1,628. Blood Diamond went on to gross $57,377,916 in the United States and Canada and $114,029,263 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $171,407,179 worldwide.
Production.
Charles Leavitt was hired by Warner Bros. in February 2004 to rewrite an early draft of the film, then titled Okavango. The story had been stuck in development hell at the studio for years before producers Paula Weinstein and Gillian Gorfil finally decided on the story of an African farmer caught up in the conflict between an American smuggler and the local diamond mining organization. Leavitt researched the diamond industry at great length before he began writing the screenplay, explaining that he has “always been a stickler for immersing [himself] in research”.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 63% based on reviews from 219 critics, with an average score of 6.30/10. The site’s consensus states “Blood Diamond overcomes poor storytelling with its biting commentary and fine performances.” On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 39 reviews, indicating “generally favorable reviews”. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of A− on a scale from A to F. Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film a positive review, calling Blood Diamond “a gem in a season with lots of worthy movies”. Home media.
Blood Diamond was released on DVD in region 1 format on March 20, 2007. Both a single-disc and a two-disc version were released. The film has sold an estimated 3.6 million DVD units and has grossed $62.7 million in sales.Cast:
- Leonardo DiCaprio as Daniel “Danny” Archer
- Djimon Hounsou as Solomon Vandy
- Jennifer Connelly as Maddy Bowen
- Kagiso Kuypers as Dia Vandy
- Arnold Vosloo as Colonel Coetzee
- Antony Coleman as Cordell Brown
- Benu Mabhena as Jassie Vandy
- Anointing Lukola as N’Yanda Vandy
- David Harewood as Captain “Poison”
- Basil Wallace as Benjamin Kapanay
- Jimi Mistry as Nabil
- Michael Sheen as Rupert Simmons
- Marius Weyers as Rudolf van de Kaap
- Jonathan Pienaar as journalist
- Stephen Collins as Ambassador Walker
- Ntare Mwine as M’Ed
- Ato Essandoh as Commander Rambo
- Tony Kgoroge as Troop Leader