Review: Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond is a compelling tale about a subsistence fisherman separated from his family and made a slave in a diamond camp by anti-government rebels in Sierra Leone. Once free, a Rhodesian diamond smuggler helps the fisherman find his family in exchange for information about a pink diamond he had found while panning at the camp. Filmed in South Africa and Mozambique, the movie introduces the sheltered North American movie-goer to the spectacular beauty of Africa while simultaneously scaring the wits out of him with that continent's violent routine. That this is the first Leonardo DiCaprio movie during which I haven't prayed for his gory demise is enough, on a go/no-go scale, to give Blood Diamond a "go".