What I love about this movie is that (in the same way as Crash did the year before) Blood Diamond takes care not to have Hollywood goodies & baddies.
Say what you like, but white Southern African white males are always portrayed in the Western media as violent racist thugs, but it is just not that simple. I thought Leonardo’s multi-layered character was extremely realistic. So much so that I was really taken in by him.
On the big question: Leonardo does the South African accent well enough for me to think of him as a South-African throughout the movie. So I think he succeeds.
Djimon Hounsou also puts in a very powerful performance. He portrays the absolute hopelessness (its the best word I can use) of the horrific wars in Central and West Africa in a way that suggests he’s had first hand experience.
Jennifer Connelly (more stunning than ever with no make-up) is also very good and honest as Maddie, but I have to say that if there were journalists as gorgeous as Jennifer Connelly running around in The Horn of Africa, then maybe there is a reason to go and check it out after all 🙂
The one negative is that some scenes / events aren’t entirely believable.
Blood Diamond is a thought provoking gem (excuse the pun) of a movie and it gets 4 out of 5 from me.
Attie Heunis's Journey 
I give this movie 4 our of 5 as well.
We enjoyed it very much. And we had a good laugh when Leonardo called the guy a “doos”, of course we were the only ones laughing in the theatre 🙂 the rest didn’t understand it.