Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a ruthless Rhodesian; he hates Africa, but "will never leave,” as his equally ruthless fellow diamond smuggler will tell him. In this film, he is caught up by the conflicts he exploits; the “blood diamonds” of Sierra Leone in 1999 which drive his greed, and drive the civil war; eventually claiming the life juice, even of him.

Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) is exploited rather than exploiter, a Sierra Leonean fisherman whose village was razed by the rebel Revolutionary United Front; his wife and daughter abandoned, ending up in a refugee camp; and his 11-year-old son abducted by the RUF and brain-washed into child-soldierdom.

Solomon himself was drafted into the search for diamonds to fund a war ostensibly fought over the control of the government (but in reality a battle for control of the diamond riches). Imprisoned in his job, under the control of Captain Poison, he is never won over for the RUF cause; and when he discovers an implausibly large pink diamond, he is determined to use the jewel as his ticket out of the hell-zone, rather than another drop in the ocean of a blood bath which just continues, as diamonds are used to buy fresh firearms.

With the stone clasped firmly beneath his feet, Solomon steels away from the river and manages to bury his treasure - but not before the Captain has seen and almost killed him. The myth of the hidden stone is born, and it is the story of this stone which drives Archer to Solomon when the two meet in a Freetown prison.

Their search for the stone, through the bulleted streets of the capital, through the death-strewn roads of a devastatingly beautiful backdrop, is an uneasy 'arrangement'; the travelling companions of course never quite friends. Archer needs to find some cash, fast, to satisfy the mercenary on his back, his former commander in the South African army – and to satisfy his own limitless greed. He is addicted to violence, it would seem, or simply can't escape: his father was decapitated, his mother raped and then strung up upside down – both before his eyes. After years fighting in the South African army, he feels life and death have come full circle – or perhaps he just doesn’t feel at all. Certainly, he is impervious to his own blame in the messy diamond-fuelled conflict: if there wasn’t the demand for the product, he wouldn’t have a job, he says. Society, just as much as he, is to blame.

Solomon, on the other hand, has his own reasons to enter into the dangerous and exploitative trip: he will find the stone and he will share the booty; just so long as Archer uses his promised “white people” contacts to track down his missing family. The heartless Archer may have little intention of keeping his promise, but the American journalist he meets along the way is determined to see that he does.

Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) is desperate to unearth proof of the illegal diamond trade out of Sierra Leone through Liberia – the main financer of the devastating civil war. In her own way, she is also “exploiting” the others, even in her “save the world” journalist kind of way, she is conscious that her pictures, her story, will sell – that people like her need conflict to make a living. She needs Archer is a source for her expose.

The film will serve as a graphic eye-opener about the realities of conflict in Sierra Leone, so close to Ghana, and so little time ago. The issue of child soldiers may leave a particular chill, because the fact is that such stories are true: ten-year-olds turned into automotive killing machines, and the practice continues today. The moment when Solomon finds and is rejected by his son, Dia (“I hate you, I don’t know you, I hate you; get away from me. Traitor!”) must certainly have happened a thousand times over. The scene where villagers have their hands cut off by the rebels (to ensure they can’t take government, “into their own hands,” by voting in the upcoming election) is also a reality.

What is unfortunate, however, is the “Hollywood-isation” of this picture, as with so many African films. Why, in a conflict which affected so many millions of people, an entire nation, should two white outsiders be the focus of the story? A real cynic might argue that just the characters exploit one another, just as Maddy herself is aware of her simultaneous awareness-building, scandal-uncovering, and her commercial “shock pictures sell” – so this film is doing the same. Perhaps Director Ed Zwick is even alluding to this consciousness himself, through Maddy’s realisation - in the movie industry, as in the motion picture, it is poor Africa, violent Africa, which sells, and Zwick is part of that simultaneous exposure and exploitation.

Because it is the (somewhat unlikely) love affair between the two Caucasian leads which truly dominates the script, with its backdrop of conflict and side cast of African characters.

In this trait, this film follows a recent trend. The Last King of Scotland is also recently released, and should be available in Ghana soon; that chronicles the experiences of a young Scottish doctor in the Uganda of Idi Aman, and his realisation, all too late, of his involvement with the murderous regime. In The Constant Gardener (2005) Rachel Weitz plays a do-good British NGO worker, who dies trying to unearth the murky trails of an evil drugs company in Kenya. In Lord of War (2005), Nicholas Cage is a arms smuggler – against the backdrop of war-torn Liberia, the real story here is the collusion of the American government in the illegal trade.