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Watched it? Rate it! (1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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If not for hubby suggesting that we watch this movie, I would’ve probably given it a miss. The three main actors were not my particular favourite, and the storyline didn’t sound all that interesting to me…I mean, three people chasing around for a diamond in Africa?

Lucky thing he did, then.

While the movie was a tad bit long, I found it to be very riveting and DiCaprio’s performance was really good (IMHO, much better than The Departed, actually!). And what a sexy accent! Djimon Hounsou, who played Solomon Vandy, was really amazing…he conveyed Vandy’s different emotions superbly throughout the movie…from the proud father who breaks down in despair and grief when he finds out his son is lost, to the overwhelming rage when he finds the person responsible for taking his son. The only character I didn’t like was Jennifer Connelly as Maddy Bowen. I felt it was a rather stereotyped “I’m a tough chick yet soft inside and I wanna change the world” character. And what’s with those bushy eyebrows?!?

It was sad to see the extreme poverty of the people in Sierra Leone depicted in the movie, and the conflict that they deal with daily. A scene that particularly stuck with me was how the young children were indoctrinated to fight with the resistance group…especially the part where young Dia Vandy was blindfolded and forced to unknowingly shoot a grown man. It was heartbreaking to know that this is the everyday lives of the people there. TIA? This is Africa? DiCaprio’s character, who said…”God left this place a long time ago”…sums it up perfectly.