and also calling the parts with the child soldiers unrealistic, which saddened me because it shows how much people ignore anything they don't want to believe -- not that I have any idea how strictly accurate those scenes were

The Süddeutsche Zeitung, which is our version of the New York Times in terms of reputation and reporting, did a series of articles about two years ago, written by Michael Bitala, about the child soldiers. And believe me, not only were those scenes accurate, they could have been even worse. I remembered various bits from the articles when I watched, like the names the children give themselves or the drugs given with the "this will make you immune to bullets" story.

I also thought they treated Danny Archer in a credible way. Would he have given the diamond back to Solomon if he hadn't died? Doubtful, and the film never pretends otherwise. Probably not. But once he knew he was dying, it was ic for him to do so.

It's a hard film to watch in a lot of ways but I was very impressed.

Same here!