Writer-director Zwick's follow-up to 2003's The Last Samurai will transport audiences to another faraway locale — 1990s Sierra Leone, a land of civil unrest where "blood" or "conflict" diamonds are part of a grim trade that often uses child soldiers to settle dirty little wars.

This action-packed drama weaves together the stories of three characters: an American journalist (Connelly), a South African mercenary (DiCaprio), and a Mende fisherman (Hounsou) using a valuable pink diamond to rescue his family. The tale that Zwick and his writing partners crafted in Los Angeles had much more resonance as it was enacted in Africa. "When you're talking about child soldiers and AK-47s, it was in the landscape of our imagination," he says, "but for these people it was real. You're stirring up ghosts." Hounsou, who left his native Benin in West Africa at age four, considers it "a blessing to be part of this, [with] global issues like child soldiers. Kids are too vulnerable — that's the reason they use them — and we need to take a moment to understand a child is still a child whether in Africa or not."