Diamond Cartel (2017)

DIAMOND CARTEL is one of the worst films I've seen in a while, and I've seen a lot of them. It also happens to be the first film I've seen from Kazakhstan, which doesn't bode too well. This is a messy thriller with barely any kind of plot, just various 'good' and 'bad' characters chasing each other around, before finally coming together for a big shoot-out at the climax. The Kazakh leads are terrible and wooden in the extreme and the whole film has a too-bright look to it, with CGI backdrops throughout; even the main actress looks constantly airbrushed.Literally the only thing this mess of a movie has going for it is the cast, with lots of old-time faces showing up for cameos. The worst of these is poor old Peter O'Toole, whose swansong this is; his voice is dubbed over in a very insulting way. Michael Madsen shows up for five minutes and Don "The Dragon" Wilson sits at a table alongside Olivier Gruner and Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, perhaps remembering their '90s heydays. Armand Assante chews the scenery horribly as the villain of the piece, while Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa does his usual thing. Best of all is the great Bolo Yeung, who at least gets one (brief) fight scene. Other than the cameos and the fun ending, this film's terrible, so you have been warned.

Russian crime boss Mussa (Armand Assante) and Mr. Lo of Hong Kong make a $30 million dollar diamond deal that gets raided by Aliya, former Casino worker and trained assassin. Ruslan, a former lover and childhood friend of Aliya almost gets killed. As they make their escape, everyone is after them. "Nothing is what it seems" we are told by Aliya who does part of the narration. The film takes place mostly in non-scenic southern Siberia.The film opens with a lousy teaser and takes most of the film to get back to it. It starts out as a decent grindhouse with appropriate soundtrack, then is ruined by a lengthy Asian style love story. It has some good shoot outs but also a ridiculous car chase scene with 50's style effects for the car ride against the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The last five minutes attempts to make amends for a bad film by creating some idea of being twisty and clever. Peter O'Toole had a very small role near the end which he didn't do well.Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

I've heard over the years that Jerry Lewis is revered in France. Apparently, in Kazakhstan, they revere 80's American crap action movies. Apparently, they study them closely. Somebody got enough money to get some big and small western names, some pretty starlets, a whole bunch of tough looking people to play actors acting in a crap action movie, an arsenal of weapons, blanks and squibs and then set out to deliberately (it can't be an accident) re-create the best of the worst of the 80's drive-in fodder. They even got them a young French Keanu clone. The only reason it's in English is because they dubbed (with the exception of Assante and Madsen) essentially the entire movie and instructed the voice actors to disregard what was on the screen and concentrate on enunciation. They even dub O'Toole for the five minutes he's in it.Early on, I thought Armand Assante ("Paradise Alley") was going to be big. Here he shows why that never happened. We already know Michael Madsen will say yes to a paycheck. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it gets worse: all three of these big names signed on for a two picture deal. This is the second. This one is probably better.On the other hand, if you like 80's crap, this is real good.That this would end up being Peter O'Toole's last film, that his career would end with three strikes, is an unfortunate illustration of the mundane reality of the glamorous film business.

It's a shame this was Peter O'Toole's last movie. Fortunately he's not in it much. We may have to question his sanity in accepting this role. If your'e a fan of the gold medallion wearing 80's crowd then this badly written cheesy B-Movie is for you. What ever happened to Armand Assante?...this movie is what happened to Armand Assante. All Hollywood producers and directors know Michael Madsen is the kiss-of-death to any movie he's been in since Reservoir Dogs. You'd have to be living in Kazakhstan not to know this...It's bad, really bad.