Blood Diamond (15).

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, Djimon Hounsou and Caruso Kuypers.

A SUPERB adult thriller taking serious themes head on, Blood Diamond is for the most part a sparkling film.

That if falls short of true greatness towards its climax shouldn't put you off too much, for when it is good, Blood Diamond is very good.

The performances are also universally brilliant. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a mercenary with the morals of a snake who aims to make his fortune in war-torn Sierra Leone.

The film pulls no punches in depicting the country's civil conflict as director Edward Zwick shows how alcohol-fuelled rebel bandits subject innocent civilians to the worst horrors of war.

These evil marauding insurgents roam the countryside, torching villages, raping women and murdering children or abducting them to be press-ganged as boy soldiers.

Caught in the midst of this savagery is the decent fisherman Solomon (Djimon Hounsou), a family man who dreams of a better life for his young son Dia (Caruso Kuypers).

But his hopes are destroyed when the guerrillas come to his village - Dia is snatched by the thugs and Solomon is forced to pan for the diamonds which fund the rebels. But when he finds a very precious stone, it draws the attention of DiCaprio's unscrupulous soldier of fortune.

Zwick's unflinching depiction of the brutality of war is powerful but the ending is all too glib and easy, flying in the face of what has come before.