Blood Diamond (DVD)

It is an excellent movie. Although it was not filmed in Sierra Leone, it captures the reality of the country to a remarkable degree. There is a great deal of violence in this movie, but that violence is organic, realistic, fitting to what happened there. They even manage to convey the fact that the people are as astonished by this violence as we are; Sierra Leone used to be one of the safest countries in the world. The movie tells the facts about conflict diamonds quickly and accurately. DiCaprio's performance is impressive, certainly the best by him I've ever seen: he is totally believable as a white African. Jennifer Connelly's role is much smaller but she makes the most of it. Djiman Housou has enormous physical presence as the brave Mende fisherman. This movie just gets so many things right that the few places it departs from reality are entirely forgivable. I would heartily recommend this movie to everyone; it is the best Hollywood movie I've seen in years.

A powerful and haunting film that takes place in the Africa of today.Ordinary Africans doing everyday things with families and children; being preyed upon by their ruthless brother Africans in the most horrific ways.Villages destroyed;children taken from parents ;males bound into a life of slavery to other Africans;women used.No democracy,and no attention from the United Nations .Di Caprio is surprisingly excellent and even his rhodesian(what that great democrat Mugabe would call Zimbabwe today) accent is good.Into the mess that is Sierra Leone(it could be any other of a host of countries in Africa)comes a "rebel" group who wants to take over the diamond mines to buy arms;get into power;buy drugs etc.ruthless,vicious,barbaric in their treatment of the local populace and faced with a corrupt local government,they almost succeed.It is not the U.N. that saves the locals from a life of slavery under such a regime,but....white mercenaries who come in and,for their own reasons,at least save the locals from further butchery.
But beyond this movie, the butchery still goes on in Africa.