It's Friday, time to review "Blood Diamond"

The end of the week is finally here but it doesn't feel like it really is. I guess that is because yesterday was a public holiday here in KL and PJ which means I had the entire day off to spend with my friends.

So what did we do? Well I decided to catch up on some movies which I've missed and one of them was "Blood Diamond" staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou. What is it about this movie that made me choose it?

Well firstly there was a statement which I heard from my colleague saying that Leonardo DiCaprio deserved to get nominated for the Oscars for this but the what made me decide was when he said that the supporting actor should be the one nominated, that got me curious.

Convincing my friends that it was a good movie was no easy task. The first thing they usually ask me is, "Who is the star of the show?". And when I answer, "Er, its Leonardo DiCaprio", they just get all freaked out. I guess that telling them that this guy here is the star of a 2 hour 15 minutes movie would probably put them to sleep.

And believe me, some parts of when he was talking did make me yawn a little but it was his supporting actor that made the show interesting. When I say that he could act, I really meant it.

In fact most of the show revolved along his life and how he tried to make a difference by being what a true father should be, longing to be with his family and trying his utmost to protect his son from going to the dark side. Totally opposite of how Darth Vader ended up to be.

The movie talked about the whole issue of conflict diamonds in Africa. If you have no idea what conflict diamonds are, please read this first. But in short, it is basically diamonds that are harvested from countries to fund their civil wars. The show showed much of how life is in Africa from how villagers were killed or their hands chopped off by rebels to prevent them for voting for the government.

It is movies like this that makes us think how real situations like these are, and they are happening right now even as we go through our normal lives. Thousands of children suffer each day due to poor conditions or some even as young as 10 are thought to be rebel soldiers. In the show they mentioned that the word "Infantry" was derived from child soldiers, I guess it may be very true.

To be perfectly honest, I would rate this show 4 stars out of 5 stars. A very good movie which should not be watched by children as it may prove to be extremely traumatizing due to its violent (yet true) nature . There are plenty of action scenes as well as scenes that will touch you to your very core of your heart.