Blood Diamond

by Gordon McDowell

Review of Blood Diamond – for the ladies!

What girl doesn’t dream of wearing a diamond on her finger? Its by far the best indication that your man truly loves you. Because true love, like a diamond, is forever.

It is just such true love which begins to blossom between diamond smuggler Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) and reporter Maddy Brown (Jennifer Connelly) in Serra… Seirraaa Leeeo…. Leonnnn… in Africa. Danny, as do most diamond smugglers, has a cynical view of the world. But just like all men with a rough exterior, all it takes is the right woman to melt his heart. Or the right black man.

Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou… try saying THAT 3 times quickly!) who knows the whereabouts of a large rough diamond, has had his son abducted by the bloodthirsty diamond mining militia. Solmon is on a quest for his son, Danny on a quest for the diamond, and Maddy on a quest for a story.

As they travel across Africa together, dodging bullets and danger, one is reminded of the classic action adventure “Romancing The Stone” but a withered old Micheal Douglas replaced with a scruffy little Leonardo… he’s so dreamy I could just eat him up!!!

But what Blood Diamond lacks in humor, it makes up for with child amputees. The militia figure the best way to scare villagers into line is to chop off the hands of random children. Well what they DIDN’T count on, was how it would move Danny Archer to caring about their plight!

Danny’s heart finally melts as he describes his parents being murdered before his eyes when he was a child. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the theater. You can imagine, how that would make a man a bit reckless, into a bit of a diamond smuggling stud. Muscles taught across his chest… as he yearns for Maddy’s comfort…

I don’t remember much after that. Not enough blood to the brain, or something like that! Anyway, the moral of the story is, if you buy diamonds make sure they aren’t from some blood thirsty militia monster who hacks off children’s limbs!

So when your man proposes, flashing that ring in front of you as your eyes mist up, take a second to make sure its a conflict free diamond. It may cost a little more, so it might be smaller, or a bit cloudier… but at least you’ll know his heart is in the right place… just like Leo’s I mean Danny’s.

And the nice black man got his son back.

I give Blood Diamond, 5 out of 5… diamonds!!!

Review of Blood Diamond – for the guys! (Spoiler Alert!)

There were actually people gasping when Leo gets shot at the end. Little “on no!” cries in the theater. Hadn’t they seen Titanic? The Departed? Romeo and Juliet? Show me a movie where Leo is still standing at the end, I’ll show you a crazed aviator putting himself in quarantine. Lets face it, things don’t usually end well for his characters.

If you’re looking to impress a woman with your social conscience, this is a great flick to do it with. Not because it stirs any serious debate. Rather, if the problem of conflict diamonds, as explained in this movie, is new information to your date, then you’re pretty much dealing with a blank slate.

Beyond the desire for a piece of carbon, for which demand has been artificially kept high. Something that can be easily created in a modern factory, that has no intrinsic value what so ever. If your date actually LEARNS SOMETHING from this movie, then you have a golden opportunity to impress.

Yes, you can walk out of the theater and talk for hours about the problems of conflict diamonds, and your date will think you actually give a shit. When really, all you do is glance at the newspaper every couple of months. I mean what guy cares about conflict diamonds?

What guy cares about diamonds, period? Gangsta rappers looking for bling… and homosexual pop stars. That’s it. If you are neither one of those, and you’re buying a diamond, then you’re looking to get yourself a wife, or you need to cut glass.

The only clever quip in the movie comes when someone thanks God that oil hasn’t been discovered in Africa, because then they’d really be in trouble. No shit! At least oil has some sort of FUNCTION. If you want to fight over oil… well it won’t impress me, but at least I can understand it. You might NEED oil to make something go. A lawnmower or something. What does a diamond do? It sits there waiting to get stolen. Too bad dollar bills don’t fit around people’s fingers comfortably.

Ok, enough about stupid people. The movie? Obvious and 15 minutes too long. They at least had a respectable ending when Leo dies. They had a shred of dignity when the credits started rolling. When the title crawl rap song about conflict diamonds started playing I just sunk into my chair. Coulda been a real movie. Coulda been “The Constant Gardner”.

On the plus side, if your woman is looking for a diamond ring, and you take her to see this, she’ll be all weepy at the end so you can console her with your pud. And when trying to argue for a cubic zirconium wedding ring instead of diamond, you can always remind her about the amputee children. For $20 and 2 hours of your life, you might just save yourself thousands of dollars.

I give Blood Diamond, 3 out of 5… Leo corpses!

Gordon McDowell