Um Caso Para Diamond

Saw this when I was but a wee nipper - and I remember loving it dearly. It never insulted my intelligence, and the plot has momentum.

Would love to see it again now, were it not impossible to find!

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.

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!

This film is fantastic Colin Dale is excellent as the brains of the Tim Diamond detective agency and noone could better Patricia Hodge's performance as the common charlady turned sleekly seductive Brenda Von Falkenberg.

I have been a great fan of all Anthony Horowitz books and the Falcon Malteaser was the very first one i read. The afternoon after seeing 'Stormbreaker' i was in the supermarket and found this film on sale for 99p.

I brought it home fully prepared to be disappointed but instead found it to be thoroughly entertaining. Nick is absolutely adorable and streetwise. Tim is dopey without being too over the top (which would have been very easy to do).

Often with book-films the screenwriter gets bogged down with what he is 'supposed' to put in and you often feel the story is thin and stretched, more like an assembly of memorable moments - racing to get through the story. The best thing about Horowitz (and you can see this in stormbreaker too) is that he writes a film that can completely stand alone and doesn't need the novelty of having a book behind it. (something that really comes across in the Harry Potter films) He knows the book and the characters inside out and isn't afraid to break from it a little. (not too much, just at those moments that seem to jar when a writer has stayed 'too true') Anyway. The film is based around two brothers, Herbert and Nick. Their parents have moved away and Herbert is looking after his 13 year old brother alone. Herbert has renamed himself 'Tim Diamond' and is working as a private detective. I don't want to give the story away - but it is engaging and satisfyingly intricate with plenty of enjoyable characters and plot twists.

Definitely worth an hour and a half of your time - silly theme tune and all!