Blood Diamond

It is 1999 and Sierra Leone is ravaged by major political unrest. Rebel factions such as the Revolutionary United Front 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, who is separated from his family and assigned to a workforce overseen by Captain Poison (David Harewood), a ruthless warlord.

One morning, Vandy discovers an enormous pink diamond in the river. 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 Freetown, along with Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a Rhodesian gunrunner, whose family was killed in the Rhodesian Bush War. Archer, who is also a veteran of the 32 Battalion fighting in 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.

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 a child soldier 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 with an American journalist, Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly); in exchange, Archer will provide her evidence of the illicit diamond trade.

With Maddy's help, Archer and Vandy travel with the press convoy disguised as journalists, 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.

While Maddy gets out with her story, the two men set out for Captain Poison's encampment. Dia, stationed with the RUF garrison there, is confronted by Vandy, but having been brainwashed he refuses to acknowledge his father. Archer radios the site's coordinates to Coetzee, who directs a combined air and ground assault on the camp; Vandy finds Captain Poison and beats him to death with a shovel as the mercenaries overwhelm the RUF defenders. Coetzee then takes Dia hostage, forcing Vandy to produce the diamond, but is killed by Archer, who realizes Coetzee would eventually kill them both. Dia holds the pair briefly at gunpoint, but Solomon confronts him again and gets through to him by reminding him of who he was before the war hardened him. Pursued by vengeful mercenaries, Archer discloses he has been mortally wounded and entrusts the stone to Vandy, telling him to take it for his family. Vandy and his son rendezvous with Archer's pilot, who flies them to safety while Archer makes a final phone call to Maddy, who is in Cape Town; they share final farewells as he asks her to assist Vandy, and gives her permission to finish her article. Archer finally takes in the beautiful African landscape before dying.

Vandy arrives in London and meets with a Van de Kaap representative; he exchanges the pink diamond for a large sum of money and being reunited with his entire family. Maddy takes photographs of the deal to publish in her article on the diamond trade, exposing van de Kaap's criminal actions. Vandy appears as a guest speaker at a conference on "blood diamonds" in Kimberley, and is met with a standing ovation.

As many as 40 countries signed this agreement to handle the sale of illegal diamonds. However, it is up to the buyer to buy diamonds that are completely free from conflict.

Charles Leavitt was hired by Warner Bros. in February 2004 to rewrite an early draft of the film, then titled Okavango.[5] 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.[5] 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".[6] He wrote the film with the assumption that it would offend the diamond industry, particularly De Beers, and so made sure to portray the industry truthfully, aware that he could potentially be sued by De Beers and other powerful mining corporations.[6] Paula Weinstein was impressed by Leavitt's Blood Diamond draft, but hired writers Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz to rewrite the script again. By the time he had completed the script, Zwick had become so interested in the story that he agreed to direct the film as well.[7]

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AllMusic

Blood Diamond: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the film of the same name, released on December 19, 2006 by Varèse Sarabande. It was composed by James Newton Howard, and won the "Soundtrack of the Year" at the 2008 Classic Brit Awards.

Blood Diamond was released on DVD in region 1 format on March 20, 2007.[31] Both a single-disc and a two-disc version are available.[32][33] High Definition versions on HD DVD and Blu-ray have also been released with a R rating in the United States and a rating of MA in Australia.

The film has sold an estimated 3.6 million DVD units and has grossed $62.7 million in sales.[31]

• Child soldiers
• English-language accents in film – South African

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Blood Diamond

• Official website (May 2, 2007 archive version)
• Blood Diamond at IMDb
• Blood Diamond at AllMovie
• Blood Diamond at the TCM Movie Database
• Blood Diamond at Box Office Mojo