Diamonds (1999)
*** (out of 4)
Thin but touching drama about an ex-fighter (Kirk Douglas) who was worthless to his son (Dan Aykroyd) but after the fighter's stroke they are brought together again. Along with his grandson (Corhin Allred), the three head to Nevada to collect some diamonds owed the old man after throwing a fight fifty years earlier. This road picture really doesn't contain anything we haven't seen countless times before but this film is very special in the fact that it was made a few years after Douglas suffered his stroke in real life. I was expecting a rather bland performance made memorable by the bravery of the actor trying to act again but I was really floored because Douglas still contains all that energy and fight that we saw from him throughout his career. Clips from his film Champion are shown here to show Douglas as the young fighter and it's rather amazing that his performance here perfectly captures that mood and spirit of that young man. He's given a couple very big emotional scenes and he pulls them off remarkably well and that intense energy is still there after all these years. Both Aykroyd and Allred also deliver fine performances as does Jenny McCarthy as a prostitute. Lauren Bacall has a small role as a whorehouse owner but her scenes with Douglas is priceless. I'm really shocked to see some major critics rip this film to shreds because it's a damn good little film that seems to have a small little following behind it. It's certainly worth watching for Douglas fans. Towards the end of the film there's a twenty-minute sequence in the whorehouse, which got me worried where the film was trying to go but it perfectly captures everything we've been led up to.
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