Quotes
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Danny Archer: In America, it`s bling bling. But out here it`s bling bang.
Danny Archer: I like to get kissed before I get fucked.
Prostitute: I`m safe, huh. No HIV.
Danny Archer: Ja, ja. I`ve heard that one before.
Soldier: Archer! You`re a dead man!
Danny Archer: Ja, ja.
Maddy Bowen: You lost both your parents.
Danny Archer: That`s a polite way of putting it, ja. Mum was raped and shot and uh... Dad was decapitated and hung from a hook in the barn. I was nine... boo-hoo right?
Danny Archer: That diamond is my ticket out of this God forsaken continent.
Solomon Vandy: I will find you... If it takes my life.
Maddy Bowen: Smuggler?
Danny Archer: How about `Soldier of Fortune`... or is that too much of a cliché?
Danny Archer: Sometimes I wonder... will God ever forgive us for what we`ve done to each other? Then I look around and I realize... God left this place a long time ago.
M`Ed: This my country, man. We here long `fore you came - long after you gone.
Soldier: She reminds me of my wife.
Danny Archer: T.I.A. This is Africa.
Danny Archer: So you`re a fisherman, ha? What do you catch mostly?
Solomon Vandy: Fish.
Danny Archer: That makes us partners.
Solomon Vandy: I am not your partner!
Solomon Vandy: [out of breath] He is my son. I am his father. I must go find him. Go ahead, shoot me if you want, but I will go find him.
Troop Leader: Here we say that the freedom is in your hands, so if you go against us, so go your hands.
Danny Archer: You`re a reporter, eh? Well piss off!
[last lines]
Ambassador Walker: The Third World is not a world apart... and the witness you will hear today speaks on its behalf. Let us hear the voice of that world. Let us learn from that voice... and let us ignore it no more. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Solomon Vandy.
Colonel Coetzee: [when Danny doesn`t initially convince Solomon to tell him where the diamond is] I`m not feeling the love here, Danny.
Soldier: Hello, hello, hello, hello!
[walks over to Danny]
Soldier: Papers, please.
Danny Archer: Danny Archer. National Geographic.
[hands officer documents]
Soldier: You`re crossing into Liberia.
Danny Archer: Uh-I`ve got a letter from the Minister of Interior, and a Liberian visa as well. I`m doing a story on the "Maraquez"
[takes out smokes]
Danny Archer: , who as you know, are allowed to cross the border in order to get into the grazing grounds. You ever, read National Geographic huh?
[takes one, and offers a smoke]
Danny Archer: [Officer, taking the whole packet, gives back documents, takes out knife, and inspects the goats. After a while, finds diamonds sewn into the back of a goat]
Soldier: [takes the diamons, walks back to Danny] You are under arrest... for smuggling.
Danny Archer: No, no, listen here my friend, listen here all right. I`m good friends with Colonel Coetzee, Colonel Coetzee would not be pleased that you`ve interfered with his business. Now, you know who I am, all right? You don’t wanna make trouble for me or my friends right? Now look, why don’t I just look the other way, all right, you take one or two of those stones, you get something lekker for the wife, or maybe the mistress all right? We solve the problem right here?
Soldier: [steps forward] We go back to Free Town, and ask Colonel Coetzee how he wishes to thank his business associates.
[looks back]
Soldier: Guys, take him away.
Danny Archer: Don`t worry, we`ll be fine, huh?
[pause]
Danny Archer: Listen, you take off, soon as I`m out the door, you don`t land until I raise you on the set front.
[Danny gets off the helicopter]
Nabil: You be careful, Danny!
Danny Archer: Don`t worry, they want these guns too much to do anything stupid!
[walks over to the captain, lights a cigarette]
Danny Archer: Where`s commander Zero?
Commander Rambo: I am Captain Rambo.
Danny Archer: Right. Right, I`ve seen your films, huh?
[laughs]
Danny Archer: I`m looking for Commander Zero, huh?
[impatiently]
Commander Rambo: He`s inside. You talk to me. You are here to help us in our struggle against the governmen...
Danny Archer: [tuts] I`m here to do business with Commander Zero, all right?
Commander Rambo: [takes out his gun, walks over to Danny, takes his cigarette, and puffs in his face]
Danny Archer: All right, you are the man, huh? You are the man.
Maddy Bowen: The world is falling apart and all we hear about is blowjob-gate.
Danny Archer: When was the last time the world wasn`t falling apart, huh?
Maddy Bowen: Uh, a cynic. Why don`t you sit down and make me miserable?
Danny Archer: [Punches guy in stomach] That`s for breaking my TV!
Solomon Vandy: [trying to rescue his son] Dia, come on.
Dia Vandy: Leave me alone!
Solomon Vandy: Dia it is me, your father. Let`s go.
Dia Vandy: I don`t know you! Fisherman!
[to the other soldiers]
Dia Vandy: Get him, get him!
[to Maddy Bowen]
Danny Archer: You come here with your laptop computers, your malaria medicine and you little bottles of hand sanitizer and think you can change the outcome, huh?
Soldier: [Before chopping off the hand of a man] Short sleeve or long sleeve?
Solomon Vandy: Dia, What are you doing? Dia! Look at me, look at me. What are you doing? You are Dia Vendy, of the proud Mende tribe. You are a good boy who loves soccer and school. Your mother loves you so much. She waits by the fire making plantains, and red palm oil stew with your sister N`Yanda and the new baby. The cows wait for you. And Babu, the wild dog who minds no one but you. I know they made you do bad things, but you are not a bad boy. I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again.
Danny Archer: So you think because your intentions are good, they`ll spare you, huh?
Benjamin Kapanay: My heart always told me that people are inherently good. My experience suggests otherwise. But what about you, Mr. Archer? In your long career as a journalist, would you say that people are mostly good?
Danny Archer: No. I`d say they`re just people.
Benjamin Kapanay: Exactly. It is what they do that makes them good or bad. A moment of love, even in a bad man, can give meaning to a life. None of us knows whose path will lead us to God.
[first title card]
Title card: Sierra Leone, 1999
Title card: Civil war rages for control of the diamond fields.
Title card: Thousands have died and millions have become refugees.
Title card: None of whom has ever seen a diamond.
[last title card]
Title card: In January 2003, forty nations signed "The Kimberley Process" - an effort to stem the flow of conflict diamonds.
Title card: But illegal diamonds are still finding their way to market. It is up to the consumer to insist that a diamond is conflict-free.
Title card: Sierra Leone is at peace.
Title card: There are still 200,000 child soldiers in Africa.
[first lines]
Solomon Vandy: Dia. Dia. Don`t want to be late.
Dia Vandy: English boys don`t go to school every day.
Danny Archer: Out here, people kill each other as a way of life. It`s always been like that.
Captain Poison: You think I`m a demon, but that`s only because I have lived in Hell.
[as they were encountering some child soldiers while driving]
Danny Archer: Drive right at them, they`ll panic.
Benjamin Kapanay: No, do you know where the word "infantry" comes from, it means: Child Soldier. They`re just children.
Maddy Bowen: Three out of five ex-boyfriends polled think I need to be in a constant state of crisis. Maybe I just give a shit.
Solomon Vandy: I understand White people want our diamonds, yes. But how can my own people do this to each other?
Maddy Bowen: Tell me where you are, and I will come help you.
Danny Archer: [after seeing his blood mix in with the red earth] I`m right where I`m supposed to be...
Danny Archer: American, huh?
Maddy Bowen: Guilty.
Danny Archer: Well, Americans usually are.
Maddy Bowen: ...Says the white South African?
Danny Archer: Ts ts ts ts. I`m from Rhodesia!
Maddy Bowen: We say Zimbabwe now, don`t we?
Danny Archer: Do we?
Maddy Bowen: Last time I checked.
[about her article about the war]
Solomon Vandy: So when people in your country read it, they will come help, yes?
Maddy Bowen: Probably not.
Commander Zero: You get something for me?
Danny Archer: And yourself get something for me, huh?
Commander Zero: You bring the plane back first.
Danny Archer: Are you craze? You get for pay me first for them.
Commander Zero: [Commander Zero hands Danny a small bag of diamonds, Danny checks its content]
Danny Archer: This no fine, huh? This no fine.
Commander Zero: This all you get!
Danny Archer: Then your boys then can use one ol` rotten AK them against them government troops and their new weapons them, huh?
Commander Zero: Maybe I could just kill you and take what you bring back!
Danny Archer: Then you get one more dead body instead of aeroplane way full with grenade launchers. So I`m think I`m gonna go to them government, huh? Them government, at least them go pay me, huh?
Commander Zero: Wait, wait. Wait, my friend. This is the thing you want? Here.
[Commander Zero pours diamonds from a can in Danny`s hands]
Commander Zero: So many I not know what do with them all. - Hey, Archer, next time, you bring satellite TV, eh? I wanna see Baywatch.
Danny Archer: Ja. Ja, ja.
Maddy Bowen: The people back home wouldn`t buy a ring if they knew it cost someone else their hand.
Captain Poison: Young man, young man, listen to me. The gov`mint wants you to vote. They say "the future is in your hands." We now the future. So we take your hands! No more hands, no more voting!
Maddy Bowen: The entire country`s at war. Why should I help this one person?
[pause]
Maddy Bowen: I can`t believe I just said that.
Danny Archer: So, don`t tell me you`re here to make a difference, huh?
Maddy Bowen: And you`re here to make a buck?
Danny Archer: I`m here for lack of a better idea.
Maddy Bowen: That`s a shame.
Danny Archer: Without me you`re just another black man in Africa.
Solomon Vandy: I thought you would steal it from me.
Danny Archer: Yeah, yeah, it occured to me, huh?
Danny Archer: You risk my life like that again... and I`ll peel your face back off your head. You understand?
Danny Archer: Because I stole a GPS, that`s how.
Trivia
Jennifer Connelly suffered a neck injury while filming a car chase scene with Leonardo DiCaprio.
The attack helicopter seen near the end of the film is a Mi-24 SuperHind Mk IV. The helicopter started life as a Russian Mi-24 (NATO designation "Hind") but underwent an extensive upgrade program by Advanced Technology and Engineering, a South African arms company. Upgrades include improvements to avionics, weapons systems, and counter measures.
The white transport helicopter Danny Archer, Solomon Vandy, and Maddy Bowen fly to the refugee camp in is a Russian Mi-8 (NATO designation "Hip-P").
The airplane that Maddy Bowen boards at Colonel Coetzee`s camp is a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 (NATO designation "Candid"). It was mostly likely the Il-76TF, which is the civilian transport variant.
Solomon`s son`s name is Dia, which means "expensive" in Krio, the adapted language of Sierra Leone.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe were Edward Zwick`s first two choices for the role of Danny Archer.
When Danny Archer arrives in South Africa, there are two women standing in front of the airport and he walks by them. These women are Leonardo DiCaprio`s mother and grandmother.
The pistol Danny Archer uses towards the end of the film is a Heckler & Koch USP.
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# In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio has a tattoo of an African Buffalo with two crossed arrows on his shoulder, this is the unit emblem of 32 Battalion sometimes called the "Buffalo Battalion".
The character of Colonel Coetzee has several lines of Afrikaans dialogue, which is also actor Arnold Vosloo`s first language.
#
# DiCaprio`s character claims that if he found the diamond he would leave the continent and never come back. He also played the character of Howard Hughes in The Aviator, in which he also claims that if his plane (the Spruce Goose) doesn`t fly, he would leave the US and never come back.
Djimon Hounsou plays Solomon Vandy, a Mende tribesman. In the movie Amistad he plays the role of Cinque, chief of the Mende tribe.
De Beers Group, which is the largest player in the diamond trade, has expressed reservations that the film will reduce public demand for diamonds. De Beers maintains the trade in conflict diamonds has been reduced from 4% to 1% by the Kimberley Process and it has been suggested the company pushed for the film to contain a disclaimer saying the events are fictional and in the past. De Beers has denied this.
SPOILER: According to Time Magazine (March 2, 2007), a computer generated tear was added to Jennifer Connelly’s face in the scene were she is conversing on a cell phone with Leonardo Dicaprio`s character, at the end of the movie.
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Leonardo DiCaprio
(as Danny Archer)
with Jennifer Connelly
(as Maddy Bowen)
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