Review of Blood Diamond (2006)
Seen in 2017.
An attempt to reinvent the action thriller with real-world relevance. The methods of child soldier indoctrination are not portrayed carefully enough to make them credible, but the decision to keep that enormous trauma as just one minor thread of the plot is still a good one. The romance and perhaps a few of the other coincidences should have been cut for realism, because they undermine the claim of real-world relevance. In particular, the closing statements speak directly about consumer responsibility, and an awkward rap to the end credits reinforces the message. The contemporary Black Book (2006), just as long and complicated and morally grey, gets away with a higher level of fantasy because it has no such exhortation and is set further back in history: 50 years rather than 10.