Just Ask for Diamond

I read the book, and was also quite curious about the film. Nick is indeed quite miscast, as is Boyle, but the rest of the cast is quite good.

I think the trouble with the film is that they hadn't enough money to do the really cool scene in which the hotel gets blown up, and more things are missing..

But an A+ for the effort, it's really cool if you read the book.

After having read the great book by Anthony Horowitz, I was rather curious to see the film. Too bad it wasn't what I expected it to be. A lot of characters were miscast, and I just couldn't be thrilled by the story anymore, because the film was very dull. Many of the jokes in the book don't come out in the film, and the main character was VERY irritating, he was too young and too clever. Don't be bothered to see the movie, it's not worth your time!

It's a shame. The film sticks quite closely to the book, but is not as good. It starts with a horribly lame opening song. The two detectives are not that great. Tim is meant to be stupid, but here he seems rather like a robot saying lines. Nick is too child-actorish, and just does not seem natural enough.

However, I suspect the director is most at fault. The whole thing lacks pace and tension. One example: the scene with the piano -- which should be a high spot -- is thrown away in a few seconds.

The book depends a lot on verbal humour, a lot of it in the narration. This is mostly lost here.

It's not all bad, but it could have been much, much better.

The basic plot of this movie is two brothers (the world's worst private detective and his wisecracking younger brother) are given a package to look after, but just about every major criminal in London is also after it.

This film is really a mixed bag. The story (based on The Falcon's Malteser, which is essentially a send-up of classic movies such as Casablanca and, of course, The Maltese Falcon) is great as it sticks pretty close to the book, unsurprisingly as the script was written by Anthony Horowitz, the author of the The Falcon's Malteser. Most of the actors/actresses are good especially the late Dursley McLinden, who plays Tim Diamond (real name Herbert Timothy Simple), Patricia Hodge (who plays Brenda von Falkenberg), Peter Eyre and Nickolas Grace (who play Gott and Himmel respectively), but unfortunately Colin Dale, who plays Nick Diamond (real name Nick Simple), and who is the main character, is hopelessly miscast.

Also, I'm not sure that Anthony Horowitz is that good at writing a script for a full length feature film (he has proved he is more than capable of scripting an episode of a TV show, as he has written for, amongst others, Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War and Agatha Christie's Poirot), but it may just be that The Diamond Brothers books (The Falcon's Malteser, Public Enemy Number Two, South by South East, The French Confection, The Blurred Man, I know what you did last Wednesday and The Greek who stole Christmas) just don't make for good adaptations, as a lot of the humour in the books is text based (one example from SbSE: "I can't say I'm a big fan of fun fairs. I can't afford the fares so I never have any fun").

I would recommend this movie, however, even to people who have never read the book, as it does not rely upon people having read the book to be able to understand it. It is entertaining, just don't expect it to be brilliant.

Take a wise cracking thirteen year old kid whose elder brother is an inept gumshoe, a host of classic British Actors (Jimmy Nail, Susannah York, Saeed Jaffrey, Roy Kinnear) amongst others, an intelligent plot and witty script from the pen of Anthony Horowitz (based on his own novel 'The Falcons Malteser'), a cult - and rather obscure - Brit heavy rock band (Mammoth) to play a gang of heavies; film it around North London in a classic film noir style and sprinkle with a cartload of tongue in cheek references to some of the greatest noir thrillers of all time and you have cooked up a rather tasty family friendly film that is a real joy to watch.

This film works on so many levels, it's well paced with so great moments of slap stick (such as the dropping of a grand piano onto a van full of bad guys) and full of crooks cartoony enough to entertain the kiddies, yet at the same time if full of enough references and in jokes to movies such as Kiss Me Deadly, Cassablanca and (of course) The Maltese Falcon to keep the hardened film buff entertained for hours.

This is the kind of left field quirky comedy that the British do best and is well worth 94 minutes of anybodies day to watch.