What we see is beyond awful: kids and women are gleefully mowed down; those who live have their arms chopped off. Solomon ends up in a diamond-mining camp, whose product, via assorted middlemen, ends up mixed with rocks of less despicable lineage on the Western market. After finding the titular fist-sized gem, he hides it just in time for government soldiers to take over the operation and, assuming him to be RUF, throw him in jail.
Enter Leonardo DiCaprio's Danny Archer, a Zimbabwe-born mercenary soldier, diamond-runner, asshole and, ultimately, tragic loner. Hearing of the rock, he frees Solomon, and the resulting search for the diamond defines both men.
For Solomon, it will buy his son's education/freedom. For Danny, it's his ticket out of Africa. Meanwhile, a turmoil-addicted journalist named Maddy (Jennifer Connelly) hopes the two men will give her a killing-blow angle on the "conflict diamond" trade.
What finally rescues Blood from absolute despair are satisfying just desserts for some of its more hideous perps, and Danny's slow stumble to grace: This, not The Departed, is the film where DiCaprio, with his fine-tooled journey from jerk cynic to mensch, graduates to the thespic big leagues.
On the auteur downside, Zwick's frequent slaughter scenes are effectively horrific, but he lacks the ability to limn the dark poetry of mass suffering, the flow from wide-angle horror to up-close consequences.
But what Zwick lacks as a complete film artist is made up for by Hounsou. He's a lean, beautiful man, and what's most striking about him are his smallish, darkly luminous eyes. Despite the frequent need to fake submissiveness, there's a coiled snake of rage lurking there. When he finally snaps at the sight of his son's abductor, it's his eyes as much as his ripped larynx that scream pain and outrage. If the Oscars had anything to do with merit, Hounsou would be a shoo-in. Even better would be the film finding the vast audience it deserves.