Austin McNeill
4/16/07Blood Diamond
Blood Diamond is a movie based in Sierra Leone in 1999. Many people went to this area to find diamonds. Blood Diamond was named that because many people were killed because of the hunt for these precious jewels. Diamonds are very expensive when they get to stores after they are checked over by the four C’s. The four C’s are cut, color, carat, and clarity. A few things that this has to do with the movie is if the diamond the prisoners found were large then like in the movie they would try to steal it. If the diamond is pink or another exotic color then that would also make the diamond more expensive. When looking for diamonds either in the mines or in the rivers like they did in the movie then they would base a diamond only on clarity, carat, and color. The cut has to do with how the person who buys that diamond cuts it and makes it look nice. In this movie a white man goes to Africa to search for diamonds and while he is there he meets a black man named Solomon, while he was imprisoned. Solomon was taken away from his family and his son was taken as a rebel child soldier. He was taken to prison by the government because they had to search if these people were rebels or prisoners of the rebels. His son became a trained killer for the rebels and he was fighting against the rebels. He found a very large pink diamond that is worth a very significant amount of money. This is how Danny, who is the white man diamond smuggler, figures out that Solomon has a big diamond. Solomon was confronted in prison and he was asked where the diamond was and he denied it. Danny helped Solomon find the diamond and also helped him get his son and family back for a piece of the diamond. Danny also met a girl who helped him realize that life isn’t all about diamonds and money.
The reason that this revolution happened in the movie is because the rebels were trying to over throw the government so that they could control all the diamonds. The rebels did things like stop people for voting for the government and vote for these rebels and they enforced this by cutting of their hands and burning down their villages. The rebels took the strong men to work and all the young boys to become child soldiers. These rebel soldiers with the children become a family because they are fighting for the same cause. This movie depicts that the children get brain washed so much that they think their commander is their new father. It is rather sad to think that these children could be doing something good with their lives like Solomon wanted his child to be a doctor but the rebels took him and made him kill innocent people. In the end they get their son back and hopefully he will become a doctor so that he can mend the broken instead of doing harm like he did as a rebel. In the end the diamond caused the death of Danny but he helped someone else out which he would have never done before he met the girl. At the same time in the end the diamond caused Solomon to get his family freed and it got him a lot of money to live his freed life with his family.
