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Utterly frustrating film.

The only redeeming qualities are probably its intentions (or what I hope are the intentions) and the absolutely gorgeous shots of its scenery.

So number one. Its intentions. Oh boy is this a preachy film. And oh boy is it black and white. The intention is simple: conflict diamonds are born from conflict and they are awful and Western consumerism sucks for buying into it. Cool, I'm on board with that.

Number two. I watched on blu-ray. Lovely.

But really, those points cannot redeem what is a truly awful plot. I'd go as far as to say the plot and the characters seriously distort the message.

The 'main' character is a diamond smuggler. Oh cool, anti-hero characters are so in right now! Maybe he'll learn the error of his ways and we'll get a trite moral message! Except Danny Archer is a grade A a*****e and is not afraid of letting everyone know how much of an a*****e he is. He does die though eventually after dodging like 2 hours worth of bullet spray (and climbing a mountain whilst his lung's been shot). But no he can't just die like all the other characters, he gets some heroic standoff where he wards off like 50 men, all the while talking to the only female character of the film and having a little cry over how sad his a*****e life has been. Oh look how poignant, he was born in Africa and he dies in Africa. What a sad sad world we live in.

The actual main character, or who I think should have been the main character, is Soloman Vandy, who cares about his family more than anything. Lucky guy discovers a diamond, yay it's his ticket out of Africa! Who cares if he has to murder a few hundred people on the way? Who cares if he abandons his homeland, the thousands of refugees? I mean duh he gets his son back. Don't get me wrong, he's a ******** saint compared to Archer, but he was wasted potential in the film. Maybe if the film wasn't so concerned with its Hollywood stars, it might have made Soloman a better character. As it stands though, Soloman just follows Archer blindly through scenarios, puts both of them at mortal peril about half a dozen times (usually by shouting out insanely) and eventually rescues his family, whoopdedoo.

The other character is barely worth mentioning because what a piece of Hollywood fluff she is. Mandy Bowen, journalist out to save the world. Oh and the only white woman in the whole film, so naturally every single male character loves her immediately and can't keep their dicks in their pants for 2 secs whilst she flutters her eyelashes. Oh but secretly she's super tough and she wants to save world so that's okay right? At the end of the film, she writes a massive exposition piece and manages to change the entire world. But not before she cries over the death of Archer, because you know, girls care more about random assholes they knew for like 2 days, more than the thing they dedicated their whole lives to.

Seriously the whole film reeks of Hollywood exploitation. Literally hundreds of people die on screen, but they only die to provide a backdrop for a*****e Archer. Entire camps full of child soldiers are blown to bits (but of course, Soloman's son gets out just fine!). The bad guys are the most obvious bad guys I have ever seen, their sole purpose in the film is to shoot and blow things up and make children do the same. And all for not diamonds, plural, but one singular pink diamond that's apparently worth millions.

Oh but it's okay, justice is served at the end. Journalist superwoman Maddy Bowen takes some super secret pics of some diamond executive buying a conflict diamond. Even though her pics show absolutely no actual evidence of anything (you can't even see the diamond or the money exchange hands, they are literally pics of the diamond executive standing by a car with a black man). But yay she exposes the story and gets all the credit! But wait, there was a thing at the beginning of the film of a G8 meeting where they already covered all of this and already knew everything that was going on that supposed Bowen discovered. And the process to sign the Kimberly Agreement to ban the import of conflict diamonds was already well underway. So huh I guess Miss Bowen did jack s**t after all besides taking pretty pictures of dead people on the side of the road.

In summary, a few sentences at the end of the film going "DON'T BUY CONFLICT DIAMONDS" is simply not convincing enough when you've just watched 2 hours of complete Hollywood bombastics.

Avoid this film because wow it will make you mad.

I kinda lost it when this rebel general guy starts shouting in a prison about a pink diamond. YEAH GREAT IDEA WHEN YOU WANT TO KEEP THE DIAMOND SECRET.

Perhaps they were that cartoonishly villainous (they've definitely got their share of human right atrocities) but the film doesn't put it in context. Although in the film, they allude to 'oh government sucks too', they definitely are far less evil than the rebel groups. In the film, they come out as simply unprepared and unable to meet violence with violence, and hence they're much more sympathetic. Rather than say, be guilty of committing atrocities themselves and completely corrupt. The RUF comes off as teenage boys looking to blow s**t up for the hell of it, rather than a militia group formed to fight against a corrupt government.