Blood Diamond (2006)

Set against the backdrop of civil war and chaos in 1990's Sierra Leone, Blood Diamond is the story of Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) - an ex Mercenary from Zimbabwe - and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) - a Mende fisherman. Both men are African, but their histories as different as any can be, until their fates become joined in a common quest to recover a rare pink diamond that can transform their lives. While in prison for smuggling, Archer learns that Solomon - who was taken from his family and forced to work in the diamond fields - has found and hidden the extraordinary rough stone. Hilarity ensues with the help of Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist whose idealism is tempered by a deepening connection with Archer, the two men embark on a trek through rebel territory, a journey that could save Solomon's family and give Archer the second chance he thought he would never have.

Trivia: Jennifer Connelly suffered a neck injury while filming a car chase scene with Leonardo DiCaprio. Solomon's son's name is Dia, which means "expensive" in Krio, the adapted language of Sierra Leone. When Danny Archer arrives in South Africa, there are two women standing in front of the airport and he walks by them. These women are Leonardo DiCaprio's mother and grandmother. In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio has a tattoo of an African Buffalo with two crossed arrows on his shoulder, this is the unit emblem of 32 Battalion sometimes called the "Buffalo Battalion". Djimon Hounsou plays Solomon Vandy, a Mende tribesman. In the movie Amistad he plays the role of Cinque, chief of the Mende tribe. De Beers Group, which is the largest player in the diamond trade, has expressed reservations that the film will reduce public demand for diamonds. De Beers maintains the trade in conflict diamonds has been reduced from 4% to 1% by the Kimberley Process and it has been suggested the company pushed for the film to contain a disclaimer saying the events are fictional and in the past. De Beers has denied this.

Okay, first off you might be wondering why, in a movie that has two Oscar nominees (Best Actor - DiCaprio and Best Supporting Actor - Hounsou) as the two main stars, did I choose a movie poster with Jennifer Connelly on it? Well, it's my blog, so there, neh! But it is a legitimate Blood Diamond poster. Which brings up the question of where do I get these posters? Originally, I used the DVD covers because I could easily find them on Amazon.com but the thing about that is that normally the DVD covers are not always the same as the theatrical versions and are usually nowhere near as cool looking. So I found a very cool website that has a database of movie posters. It is called the Internet Movie Poster Awards and it has just about every film you can think of going back a long way (most of the last 20 years is pretty comprehensive, but you can find poster back to 1913) . In this case Blood Diamond has 8 posters on the site (2 of which are foreign language). Most of the time I pick the best looking poster which is not always the main poster. Okay, enough 'splainin'. Back to the movie. It had some good action sequences. DiCaprio deserved the nomination even with the accent (but he was better in The Departed) and Hounsou was magnificent. The one thing that was a little puzzling was the love story between DiCaprio and Connelly (Not that I am complaining that Jennifer Connelly was in it). This is an African story and the love story is between a white African smuggler and a white American journalist? I can understand that Hounsou could not have had a love story, he was fiercely devoted to his wife and children and getting them back which just left DiCaprio and Connelly. It was just a little wierd.