Wow, I never thought you could break a work into something so complex and I could not find an explanation to expand the word blood. George Bernard Shaw, in a club once said " Do I have your gracious permission to insert the tips of my digits with the atomized particles of tobacco into my nasal promonitory". when he meant to ask "May I Snuff?" Okay that was deep and it was an unrelated bit of junk pile information, I just wanted to put here . . . .
Anyway, for a very long time, I had this impression of DeCaprio that he still needed time to do a mature role. Well, I did like his performances in Basketball Diaries and Catch Me If You Can, but they still had that yourthfull exuberance that he always displays. For a nice change, he plays the experienced, laid back, scheming person in this role, which brings out a very mature side of his acting persona. I saw him do this in The Departed with great effect. One does not share screen space with Jack Nicholsen, without being over shadowed, however he did manage to play his part without a hitch.
Based on a reality about Blood Diamons from Sierra Leone and about the factual Kimberly Process that was brought out to fix the problem, this is a movie which deals with a minute based detail of how the transfers take place, who gets the money and everything. From the tortured interior regions were people are forced into salvery in mines, to the plush offices of London diamond markets, they take you through an entire world of chaos. The way the story is reeled out, is neither too fast nor too slow. Just the right pace for a movie. Djimon Hounsou plays his piece in a way that makes you believe in him. By the end, you are happy to see his life take a change for the better.
What I really find interesting about the movie, is the way the story is told in a quazi-first person mode. The direction of the story is told in both Hounsou and DeCaprio’s points of view in the same frame. You actually get to see both men interact on the screen, the way real people do. The entire moviie has this and in a continuity stand point, it works great. One of those rare movies in the past year, which I would not mind getting the DVD into my collection. Most of the stuff that came out the past year was something you had to watch on a king size theatre screen.(Like Transformers) or something you just rent watch and forget(Like Apocalpto)