Diamond Skulls

This cold-blooded dissection of English upper-class immorality begins when brooding aristocrat Gabriel Byrne kills a woman while on a drunken drive through London, and his old-school pals, along for the ride, decide not to report the accident. It's a great hook, but no one can think of anything to hang on it. There's a teasing suggestion that the hit-and-run might not have been entirely accidental, but what begins to develop as a mystery emerges, instead as a vague character study, although it's unclear if that character is meant to be (in a portentous metaphor) England herself. The film could have been twice as fascinating at half the length; too much of the slim 87 minute running time is padded with Byrne's sexual domination fantasies (which no doubt explain the NC-17 rating), and with redundant scenes of the idle, decadent rich at play: regimental buddies riding piggyback around the dining room, and so forth.

"Dark Obsession" is a stylish, sexy story of the place where love becomes something darker, and where friendship and loyalty to an ideal become a reason to circumvent justice at all costs. When a drunk English aristocrat (Gabriel Byrne) driving a friend's car accidentally kills a woman, his friends cover it up. When one of them has a crisis of conscience, he is obliquely warned to examine where his loyalties lie. Meanwhile, the aristocrat's wife (Amanda Donohoe) is wrestling with her own marital secrets and her own obsessions.

Directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield, "Dark Obsession" is one of the most chilling ever dramatic commentaries on the British class system and its codes of honour. The film may be too sophisticated for the average American viewer to pick up the nuances (as seen by the other review of this film in this forum) but stands alone as a superb family drama with stellar performances from Byrne, Donohoe, as well as the incomparable Judy Parfitt as the family matriarch, and is one of the most underrated films of its kind. Highly recommended.

OK, the film is uncomfortable and a bit basic, but anyone who loves and I mean loves Gabriel Byrne, will really want to watch this movie. Lots of very moody shots of him doing what he does best and thats looking dark, Irish and quite lovely. A bit of a strange plot, but he stands out in his film.

Amanda Donoghue is excellent, and the back drop of London and the English country side is an important part to the film.

You don't actually identify with anyone to like in this film, however as previously mentioned if you are an avid 'Gabriel' watcher, then this one is for you.

This film tries to be much more clever than it actually is. An aristocrat, empty and brutal, runs down a woman while the worse for drink at the wheel of his car. The woman resembles his wife more than a little. Murder, or mistake? Gabriel Byrne, in the stage of his career when he was still playing low-lifes, bad guys, and simmering sadists, is OK as the lead character, Hugo. Sexy Amanda Donohoe has another interesting role to set against her big break in 'Castaway' a couple of years earlier, but there is little chemistry between her and Byrne - it can't have been an easy film to do, though.

As a depiction of ruling Britain, 'Diamond Skulls' falls into the trap of showing drunken, orgy-obsessed cretins who serve very little purpose. It tries to be both intellectual and psychological, but Nick Broomfield's direction is muddled and the film is a mess.

I bought this movie for 99 cents at K-mart several years back (along with "Hawken's Breed") figuring anything with Gabriel Byrne and Amanda Donahoe is surely worth that much. It wasn't. "Dark Obsession" (the title I bought it under) was a slight cut above "Hawken's Breed" (IMBD rated at 2.4), but not enough to allow me to even keep it in the house. I threw both movies in the trash.

This thing fails on so many levels it's hard to narrow it down, but let's just say it's tawdry, incredible, boring, hedonistic, confusing and even at 100 minutes, way too long.

I love Byrne as an actor, but this schlock really looks bad on his resume.