DIAMOND MEN
Reviewed by Harvey Karten DC Films/Sidekick Entertainment/Shipwreck Productions Director: Daniel M. Cohen Writer: Daniel M. Cohen Cast: Robert Forester, Donnie Wahlberg, Bess Armstrong, Jasmine Guy, George Coe, Kristin Minter, Nikki Fritz, Shannah Laumeister, Kate Rimmer, Paul Price Screened at: Preview 9 NYC 8/21/01
Torn from today's headlines about corporate downsizing and the rupture of trust between management and labor; pulled from the sociological debates of the seventies about the gap between the generations; "Diamond Men" is a clever, humorous, sardonic and exquisitely acted indie about contemporary life in America. Written and directed by Daniel M. Cohen, the picture starring Robert Forster as the thoroughly professional fifty-ish diamond salesman and Donnie Wahlberg as his brash 28-year-old trainee treats its two principal themes with the kind of skill seen in no other film this year. Delightfully underplayed and carefully developed, "Diamond Men" is a rejoinder to the groaners who complain that there's just nothing out there in the movie theaters any more: it's the first four-star picture of the year, a just-in-time, life-saving antidote to the barrel of swill called "Bubble Boy" which I swallowed just twenty-four hours previous to this screening.
Dan Cohen opens his movie on Robert Forster, who performs in the role of diamond salesman Eddie Miller, looking dazzling in a thousand-dollar suit as he confidently heads to his capacious car only to suffer a heart attack, after which he is Willie-Lomaned by his much younger boss presumably because he is no longer insurable. Asked to mentor Bobby Walker (Donnie Wahlberg), the arrogant young man who is to take his place, who has personality to burn but no special aptitude for the job, Eddie is put off by Bobby's youth culture (rock music, egotistical attitude, undiplomatic statements) while for his part Bobby has little use for the older man's inflexibility. During their long drives to clients in the Harrisburg, PA area, they get to know each other, become buddies, and while exchanging information about women and sharing real experience with them in bars, restaurants and other places, each casts a marked change on the other's life.
Dan Cohen's writing goes far toward making "Diamond Men" the gem that it is. Cohen would no more force a gag or a humorous situation on his audience than would Eddie high- pressure a customer to buy. At no point does the story skirt the borders of sit-com territory. The audience is made aware from the start of the flaws in each person's character. We root for Eddie to loosen up and for Bobby to become a mensch and we enjoy watching the clever way that the script brings the turnabout to fruition. The concluding scene is a twist that will knock your socks off. Robert Forster, almost needless to say, never disappoints. The stellar sixty-year-old performer first got the attention of the film industry through his performance as Stanley Kowalski in a 1967 production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and gained wide recognition for his supporting role as Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown." This time it is he who is afforded the firm support of a troupe of performers, particularly Donnie Wahlberg as a true-to-life (if somewhat exaggerated) replica of modern youth; and Bess Armstrong, as Katie, a woman who is not what she seems to be but proves, like Bobby, to be adept at turning Eddie's life around. In one amusing scene a bunch of old fogies, jewelers all, are playing cards with Eddie, joking about how one of them is enjoying a sexual relationship with his clerk, who is forty years his junior. "First you'll change her diapers, and then she'll be changing yours," jibes one of the players," but here again we see that things are not what they seem on the surface. The twists, the performances, the themes, the sincerity, the respect for the audience. They're all here. What more can you ask for?
Not Rated. Running time: 100 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 29289 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 245692 X-RT-TitleID: 10000666 X-RT-SourceID: 570 X-RT-AuthorID: 1123
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews