T.I.A. This is Africa

Danny Archer: That diamond is my ticket out of this God forsaken continent.

After Danny Archer(Dicaprio) is caught smuggling Diamonds across the border he is sent to prison, where he overhears that a local fisherman names Solomon Vandy(Djimon Hounsou) has found a massive diamond, but he isn’t telling anyone where it is. Danny works the angle knowing Solomon wont know who to trust. Danny has ulterior motives, but all Solomon wants is to get his family back. While on the journey Danny reveals bits and pieces of his life story to Maddy Bowen (Connelly), but as the two connect, Danny and Solomon decide they must be the ones to go in and retrieve the Diamond before anyone else gets their hands on it.

Danny Archer: T.I.A. This is Africa.

I went into this film having seen Leo’s masterful performance in The Departed only two months earlier. I was hoping for the same kind of emotionally charged performance in this film. What I was left with was a completely different character. It is easy to understand his cynical viewpoints, but the one thing the audience does not get to understand about Archer is why he has shut himself off from showing just a little bit of compassion. We all can understand that living his life, he would become hardened and self sufficient, but the one thing we dont understand is why he would not want to help Solomon Vandy who is an innocent man. We see Archer through-out the film scheming and planning to get Vandy out of the picture so that he can cash in on something Vandy worked hard for. But as the film progresses and Archer connects with Maddy we see glimpses of a softer more vulnerable Danny Archer, and these are the scenes in which DiCaprio is able to fully utilize his talents. DiCaprio is so good because we aren’t sure if we want to believe anything Archer says but we can’t help but feel sorry for all that he has been through.

Maddy Bowen: The people back home wouldn't buy a ring if they knew it cost someone else their hand.

Then there are Solomon Vandy, a local man who is a fisherman just trying to right by his family, and Maddy Bowen an American Journalist who just wants the rest of the world to be aware of these issues. At first neither of them like Archer as he gives them no reason to feel anything but resentment towards him. Maddy sees right through his tough guy exterior and Solomon knows that he has no other choice but to work with Archer. Connelly and Hounsou feed off the energy and the emotion of DiCaprios finest performance in his career. Hounsou and Connelly play two innocent people caught up in an age old war.

Why is Blood Diamond such a good film, because it just doesn’t focus on Archer, Vandy and Bowen, but on the government, the child soldiers the slavery in which these people have been forced to partake in for many generations now. Blood Diamond is such an emotional film because they aren’t afraid to show you all the horrifying images that many people are afraid to look at. People can raise the argument that all three of these characters are fictional, but I will raise the counter argument that there are people out there just like Archer, just like Solomon and there are real children who are forced to fight for the revolution of which they want no part of. As the final screen tells us, without giving spoilers as to how the film finishes, there are still over 200,000 child soldiers in Africa.

Danny Archer: Sometimes I wonder... will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? Then I look around and I realize... God left this place a long time ago.

Now you may not see this as the greatest film of all time like I do, or you may not see DiCaprios performance as one for the books, but if one image from this film stuck with you, whether it be the child soldiers, the refugee camps, the burning of villages or the men working in Camps day in and day out just to find diamonds so that wealthy people here in North America can buy each other presents then this film did what it was supposed to do.

Blood Diamond is the best film of 2006, and perhaps the best film I have ever seen, DiCaprio should have won best actor, Hounsou should have won best supporting actor. But most of all this film should have at least been up for best picture.

[to Maddy Bowen]
Danny Archer: 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


10/10