A violently poignant movie of civil war and a father's longing for his abducted son, Blood Diamond is an electric prod to the conscience of a world blissfully ignorant of the horrors of an abandoned Africa. Blood Diamond narrates the gory story behind the glittering diamonds which poured out of Africa in the 1990s. The story is set in civil war infested Sierra Leone. The Revolutionary United Front is running riot, armed by neighbouring Liberia. The heavily armed rebel troops overpower government forces in many places and usurp diamond mines. Slave laborers are tortured and forced to work in the mines. The illegally mined diamonds are then smuggled into Liberia, from where they are "legally" exported to the West. There is also an underground market of elite Western businessmen and corporates who source these diamonds cheap, further fuelling the civil war in distant Africa. "This Is Africa," the protagonists of Blood Diamond say contemptuously. In diamond-fuelled conflicts in African countries, an estimated 3.7 million people are estimated to have died already. There is also mass enlisting and drugging of children for the boy regiments of the rebel army, so poignantly and convincingly rendered by the makers of Blood Diamond. The brutality of the RUF in training pre-teens as murderers, massacres and primitive torture methods come to life in Blood Diamond.

Solomon Vandy is a fisherman from the Mande tribe, who wants his brilliant son to be a doctor so that he does not have to be at the fishing nets like the father. However, fate has other ideas, as they are caught in the civil war and the son is snatched away to be groomed as a child soldier, while the father is sent to work in a diamond mine. Blood Diamond reverberates with gunshots and screams of death and violence from the very beginning. While Solomon is working in a river along with other slave labourers, he finds a large pink diamond - the Blood Diamond. He hides it, knowing that if his act is found, he will be instantly killed. He manages to bury the diamond in a secret place. But there is someone watching while he is busy burying the diamond. But even as he pulls a gun on Solomon, rival forces attack and in the ensuing melee, they are carted off to the prison.

In jail, Solomon comes in contact with Danny Archer, a ruthless diamond smuggler from Zimbabwe who once fought for the country's army. Danny has made a living out of acquiring, trading and smuggling diamonds across the border so that the "conflict diamonds" can be "legalised" before going out to civilised Europe and Americas. The jack of all trades, Danny lands in jail while attempting to smuggle diamonds across the border sewed into goats in a flock.

In jail, Danny comes in contact with Solomon, a broken man. Solomon has no idea where his family is, or whether they are alive. Danny comes to know of the buried diamond from the man who spotted Solomon burying the diamond. From this moment, their fate is intertwined, right up to the end of Blood Diamond, through gunfire and rebel territory.

After leaving the jail, the worldly-wise Danny gets Solomon Vandy out of the jail and approaches him for directions to the buried diamond. Solomon shoos away Danny, but he is persistent. Enter American journalist Maddy Bowen who is in Sierra Leone to pursue the story of conflict diamonds. She taps Danny for a story, but comes to know that he himself is in the middle of the smuggling ring. He tries to shake her off, but discovers that he can make use of her press privileges to find Solomon's missing family, which he can then barter for the buried Blood Diamond.

It is no easy task to convince Solomon. Solomon finally agrees when he realises that he may be able to find his family with the help of Danny and Maddy, but only if he is willing to reveal the location of the Blood Diamond. But the diamond itself is now buried in rebel territory and going there is going to be a risky affair.

But first, the family. With enormous help from Maddy and her press influence, the trio travel through the heart of civil-war ridden Sierra Leone. There is massacre, bloodshed and destruction all around in their path to the Blood Diamond. Ducking bullets and missile attacks, they hunt refugee camps and finally find his family at one of them.

Family? Hardly. His dear son Dia is missing, taken away to be trained as a child soldier by the rebels fighting the civil war. From there starts another journey to the heart of the hostile territory, where Solomon and Danny have to find Dia. Meanwhile, the son is battle-hardened into a machine gun wielding boy soldier, drugged, armed and ready to kill, spewing hatred for his dad. Once they spot him, all hell breaks lose. Danny's partner lands up to bomb out the place to find the diamond.

The buried Blood Diamond is finally discovered, but life is draining from an injured Danny, who has pursued the diamond all through. He hands the diamond to Solomon, with instructions on going to London. This is the peak moment of Blood Diamond.

Once the father and son land in London, they are contacted by Maddy, who pursues her story to the logical end. The corporates who sustain the civil war in Sierra Leone through purchase of conflict diamonds are exposed and Solomon becomes a national hero. Danny appears in the magazine pages, but the hero himself is dead on a cliff.

With deadly efficiency, Blood Diamond exposes the rotten underbelly of sub-Saharan Africa, where the law of the jungle prevails. Punctuated by gunfire from the beginning, the script is taut and well-written. There is hardly a moment sans tension, and the actors have performed excellently well, delivering what the director had in mind. Danny's heartless smuggler character and his transformation to a human being is presented convincingly. Leonardo DiCaprio has proved yet again that he is here for the long term. After his nomination for the 2004 Oscars for his role in Aviator, this could be his next shot at Oscar awards 2006-2007. This is besides his sterling performance in "The Departed", the other outstanding movie by Martin Scorsese, which has won two Critics Awards. Djimon Hounsou, who stars as Solomon Vandy, is neck and neck with DiCaprio. Jennifer Connelly as the journalist is not as brilliant as her role in A Beautiful Mind as John Nash's wife, but she delivers her role quite well. Arnold Vosloo as Colonel Coetzee, Kagiso Kuypers as Dia Vandy and David Harewood as Captain Poison too have done excellently well.

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