There’s a great line in Saving Private Ryan where Ed Burns’ character questions the sanity of rescuing Matt Damon: “You want to explain the math of this to me? I mean, where’s the sense in risking the lives of the eight of us to save one guy?”

That line struck me as I watched Blood Diamond.

Set in Sierra Leone in the late ’90s, it’s the story of a Rhodesian mercenary played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is trying to get his hands on a rare pink diamond. The diamond was found, then hidden by a fisherman played by Djimon Hounsou, who’s trying to find his family amid a civil war. DiCaprio offers to help Hounsou find his family if he’ll split the diamond with
him.

It is, at heart, an action movie. A lot of people die, including soldiers, rebels and many innocent men, women and children. That bothered me a little. I’ve always had a problem with movies where lots of people die just so one person can learn a lesson or achieve some relatively minor goal.

In Blood Diamond, that is nearly the case. It’s not that innocent people die for Leo or Djimon, but their deaths take a back seat to the central story of Djimon finding his family and Leo finding the diamond and ultimately redemption.

It wouldn’t be fair to talk about the movie without giving some praise. The film does reveal the horror and brutality of the Sierra Leone civil war. And it exposes the hoarding, manipulation and suspected corruption of the diamond industry.

Plus, I will gladly admit that BD isn’t nearly as bad as some other action flicks with senseless over-the-top death tolls, such as Lethal Weapon, Face Off, and my personal favorite, Desperate Measures, where Brian Cox even laments to Andy Garcia, “How many people are going to have to die here tonight so that kid of yours can live?”

That all said, I wish Blood Diamond had been a little less cavalier about all the people shot, blown up, and chopped up with machetes while Leo and Djimon searched for the stone.

Ethan Morris: “Not always right, but never in doubt.” Go ahead and write me.