Diamond Dogs

Nothing positive to say about this other than the scenery. Filmed in Mongolia and some of the scenery is breathtaking.

I gave it 4/10 as I did finish it. I think the quality of the film is more a 3/10 Its not offensively bad but, it is very poorly made.

On the DVD cover I had Dolph was not listed as the director but is on IMDB I have read there were problems on set and Dolph finished the movie as the director left.

Under the circumstances he probably did the best he could.

This film looks very cheap. I imagine they had a very limited budget and very limited time to finish the movie.

This film is strictly for Dolph completists.

This is worth watching just to see how a 50+ year old man can still look like a 21 year old - Wow what a build the guy has got and still looks young too - Seriously jealous am I, it was actually worth watching just to see how some stars do not age and Dolph is definitely in the ageless Tom Cruise club!

Ok, on with the serious stuff - The acting is terribly terrible; so what's new but I did actually like the Kevin Spacey lookalike bad guy! Some of the dialogue made me mess my pontaloons! The story is boggo standard and many scenes are clearly influenced by the daddy of all adventure movies Indiana Jones but on a shoestring budget...nay even a sandal-string budget. The action fight scenes were woefully choreographed as though they were having a bit of a fun day out in the fields playing Japs and Commandos boys with guns but the photography, although it is wobbly and totally incoherent at times it is actually a bit refreshing and for some utterly inexplicable reason I did find some of the movie quite fun!

Yes it is dreadfully unoriginal and made on the budget of 10p and a bag of monkey nuts but it is different and I like different, I also like Dolph even though he cannot act worth a dime but he looks so good for a guy of 51 so I give it a fair 4 x AK47's out of 10 on my action-o-mometer!

Judging by the comments here on IMDb, public opinion on this movie is divided into 2 distinct camps.

Firstly you have the salivating fans for whom the mere presence of Lundgren is enough to make any film a work of cinematic genius. If that's all it takes to please you, then no comment on here will change your mind. That's fine, enjoy your Dolf - try not to drool on him.

Then you have those who expect, nay DEMAND that any movie which features plot elements such as relics, temples and gunfights follow the big budget Hollywood formula of intricate death traps, load bearing treasure and near superhuman heroics which made the Indiana Jones movies, Mummy series and Tomb raider so successful.

This is where I begin to have a problem. The aforementioned films derive most of their entertainment value from witty one liners, flashy special effects and slick choreography. Diamond Dogs on the other hand goes in the opposite direction, moving the focus of the film away from elaborate action and adventure, on to the characters and their survival.

The majority of the film appears to have been shot on location and most of the characters (played well by a less than famous cast) lack the exaggerated personalities and convoluted motivations you'd find in a Hollywood blockbuster. The result of this shift is that the whole film feels more 'National Geographic' than 'National Treasure'. The sporadic action is fast and lethal, no fancy footwork and no coming back with multiple wounds for one last shot. The 'bad guys' are bad as opposed to villainous and the 'good guys' are played straight, behaving in a practical and decidedly un-heroic manner. I for one found the lack of comedy quipping a refreshing change. In fact the only thing that bothered me in the whole movie was William Shriver's portrayal of 'Chambers' which WAS admittedly slightly over the top toward the beginning of the film.

All the above waffle basically boils down to this; You want an action adventure romp, packed with booby traps, wisecracks and villains? Go watch something else. If however you think you could appreciate something a bit different, with beautiful scenery, an unusual soundtrack and a sizable (but rarely flashy) body count, then you could do an awful lot worse than Diamond Dogs.

Just another Seagal-Van Damme-Dudikoff type movie where martial arts, beautiful Asian women vs ugly Asian men, picturesque Oriental landscape and treasure hunt have been somewhat clumsily mixed into an action movie. Like in many movies with Lundgren, Russians are bad and greedy again... And of course, there are lots of fight and chase scenes so playfully resolved by Lundgren's character himself. In spite of his age (he was almost 50 during the filming) he still looks strong and fit.

The plot, directing and camera work have their shortcomings, but the movie is not "yawning", logic of the course is still there, the ending is not 100% anticipated and the length (1,5 hours) is just appropriate for killing time.

Every action film fan is a bit attached to the good Dolph, but somehow he never really got his act together, the big waves were already missed in the 90s. Here we are, in the middle of the 2000s, so the glory days are years ago, although he still cuts a good figure visually. Couldn't a producer take pity on the fans and throw them a real hit with a good story and an acceptable budget? Yes, there were some small, and I emphasise small, highs to be found in the linear depth, see "The Mechanik" shortly before, but the film unfortunately catapults everything back to the bottom.

The story is cack-handed and spat out. The rest of the actors, what actors. One low-level action scene follows the next. Ok, chasing is the wrong expression, because the film has many long, boring landscape sequences as filler scenes. There really must have been only a mini-mini-mini budget available.