Diamonds

I have always liked Kirk Douglas and to see him now after he had a stroke is sad but that's the way life is. He is not afraid to let the public know that he is alive and doing the best he can. I can associate with this movie because I had a stroke 10 years ago and thankfully fully recovered. This movie might be a little thin in spots but to see him and also Lauren Bacall is a movie-going treat. I hope that he does a lot more movies.

I have never seen Kirk Douglas act as well as he does in this film--stroke or no stroke. Lauren Bacall (who starred with Kirk Douglas previously in the 1950 film "Young Man With A Horn"), Dan Ackroyd, and Corbin Allred provide top-notch support, but this is mainly Kirk Douglas' showcase. The only criticism I can perhaps make is the sugar-coated way the film treats prostitution, however a cynical view of prostitution wouldn't fit in this movie. This is a movie that should appeal to all age groups.

This road movie deals about Harry(Kirk Douglas), an old retired boxer affected by a stroke. He claims to have a fortune in diamonds hidden in location of Reno into house a mobster(James Russo). Harry along with his estranged son(Dan Aykroyd)and grandson(Corbin)going on a road trip toward Nevada to retrieve it. Throughout travel enjoy various adventures and feeling moments. Meanwhile, they stop in a brothel with a veteran madame(Lauren Bacall) and attractive prostitutes (Jenny McCarthy).

This is an independent road movie developing an agreeable father-son-grandson relationship with intimate bonding moments. Casting is justly excellent. Kirk Douglas is magnificent,in spite of his real stroke, as one-time boxing champion .He appears in a television images about his film titled ¨Champion¨(1949,Mark Robson)and is reunited with Lauren Bacall with whom he played in ¨Young man with a horn¨(1950,Michael Curtiz¨. Appears uncredited in a special cameo, John Landis as a gambler. Appropriate cinematography and sensible music score by Joel Goldsmith( Jerry Goldsmisth's son). The motion picture is professionally directed by John Asher. He's usually actor(CSY, NavyCSI) and director TV and occasionally director for his wife, Jenny McCarthy(Dirty love, Thank heaven), here lively playing a whore. Rating : Acceptable and entertaining.

The scenes between Dan Aykroyd and Kirk Douglas where they are working through Dan's disappointment that Kirk was not a better father are fantastic! Every man who has ever been disappointed in his father should watch the old post stroke Kirk Douglas telling his son "I never kicked you in the ass, and I'm proud of that. My father beat me and I didn't beat you and that was a great thing." Maybe the definition of growing up is learning that your parents were children once, and they were hurt and disappointed and did not get enough from their parents, and that we are just all in this together, trying to find love. Maybe I am not a grown up until I have cried for the pain and disappointments my own mother and father have had in their lives, even though they also disappointed me.

It is just lovely to know that even in a movie I never heard of, that never really made it, I can find such moments of genuine humanity.

"Diamonds" was a very good movie. I initially rented it because a former teen crush (Jenny McCarthy) of mine had a starring role in it. As I watched the movie I began to see that there was a lot more substance to it than just being a flick with a former Playboy playmate in it. It was well worth the money and it most certainly was one of the best I have seen to date. Go see it. It was Kirk Douglas's best (and last) movie in my opinion.