Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend and worth a guy’s whole paycheck, but there has always been a looming violent history behind the diamond mining industry. “Blood Diamond,” opening today, manages to deliver a socially conscious film with plenty of action and adventure.

A “blood diamond” or “conflict diamond” is one that is mined in a war zone and sold in the global market. Insurgents are thus able to purchase weapons and prolong their killings through the diamond mining industry. What makes the industry even more controversial is the fact that conflict diamonds have often been mixed into the global supply.

Directed by Edward Zwick (“The Last Samurai”), the movie is set in Sierra Leone, West Africa in 1999; amidst ongoing civil war between the government and the rebel army, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). In the first few moments of the movie, the audience watches in horror as the RUF (with some soldiers being mere children) massacres almost an entire village and captures some of the men to do forced labor on the diamond mines.

One of the men captured is a local fisherman named Solomon Vandy, (Djimon Hounsou). While working for the rebel army, he discovers a rare pink diamond and decides to hide it from the rebel leader. Meanwhile, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a South African mercenary, is arrested for smuggling and comes to learn of Vandy’s hidden treasure.

Archer sees the diamond as a ticket out of Africa, while Vandy hopes it will pave the way to finding his family who fled after the RUF raid. The two team up, despite their differences, and go on a quest to recover the extraordinary jewel. Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist investigating “conflict diamonds,” accompanies them on a journey through dangerous rebel territory.

The performances were brilliantly rendered – DiCaprio was impressive as Archer, reigniting his credibility as an actor (not just as another “A-lister”) and maintained an accent that didn’t become annoying.

Hounsou gave an emotionally charged performance, reminding me of his presence and power in 1997’s “Amistad.”

Connelly’s role was surprising – at first I thought she would just be the typical love interest in the film, but her role as a journalist was inspiring in its power and depth. She wasn’t just the “babe” in the movie.

Rated R for plenty of graphic violence, the movie comes very close to becoming solely a war movie. It seemed like every five minutes another car blew up and the main characters were caught in another cross-fire. While this may be argued to depict the actual amount of violence in Sierra Leone at the time, it just seemed like too much; as you were catching your breath, recovering from the last explosion, Zwick pounded you with another one to stomach.

Overall, I was relieved to find that this wasn’t just another Hollywood action-adventure movie. I had this horrific vision of the treasure-hunt plot being something like an “Indiana Jones” flick, with Archer as the archetypical hero trekking through jungles. Instead, it was a film that succeeded in stirring up emotions and educating the public of an issue that has surprisingly gone overlooked cinematically, and often times, journalistically – until now.

Like Archer says in the movie, “In America, it’s bling-bling, but out here it’s bling-bang.”

Rating: 4 Stars

Total stars possible: 4

Karen Balmes can be reached at [email protected]