A 2006 American-German co-production directed by Edward Zwick, “Blood Diamond” received a lukewarm critical welcome. But it helped Leonardo DiCaprio’s transition from baby face heartthrob to a genuine character actor. Set in 1999, in the midst of the Sierra Leone Civil War, it tells the tale of the war atrocities and the blood diamonds trade used to finance the military operations. DiCaprio plays Danny Archer, a white Rhodesian gun runner who finds himself imprisoned with a rebelling warlord named Poison and one of his forced laborers Vandy (Djimon Hounsou). Working in the mines Vandy came across a huge pink diamond and concealed it. Poison learned of this, but they were arrested before he had a chance to act. Upon hearing of the diamond, Archer arranges to have Vandy freed in an attempt to use the diamond to cover his losses in the gun running trade. On their quest to retrieve the diamond and save Vandy’s family they meet Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist investigating the blood diamonds trade. The lucrative diamond pits Archer and Vandy against Poison and his troops, as well as an army of mercenaries hired by the government and led by Archer’s former associate. Archer will risk his own life primarily for the diamond, but along the way he will grow to like and respect Vandy, and perhaps get a chance to amend his greedy, amoral ways and do a good deed not out of his own personal gain, but simply out of the need to help a fellow human being.
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