Just Ask for Diamond

I remember seeing this film when i was off sick from school and couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it!

It was a classic example of British comedy for family entertainment, with a good story and strong acting. I'm scared that if I watched it again, I wouldn't like it, so I'll leave the fond memories in the past.

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!

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!

Of course the film Just Ask For Diamond, directed by Stephen Bayly, is different from the novel by Anthony Horowitz. Time (and budget too) demands the story is edited so as to fit over 200 pages of text into 90 minutes of film. Indeed, the result is that a lot of interesting events are cut from the plot as well as many of the novel's original and charming characteristics. Dialogues are shortened, the narrator is more or less removed, violence is toned down. Where the novel has a tough and very cynical 13-year-old who has not got a good word for anyone or anything he has to deal with -the city of London, for instance, is presented as if it were the capital of Hell, the film presents us with sweet and adorable-looking Colin Dale who seems concerned more with maintaining a Received Pronunciation accent than playing a poor kid on the brink of the precipice. And London has come to look about as menacing as the green pastures where the TeleTubbies live. Still, the man responsible for the screenplay is the same as the one who wrote the book and he leaves us with enough to enjoy Just Ask For Diamond (a.k.a. Diamond's Edge). Dursley McLinden is the perfect cast for clumsy Tim, Susannah York makes a wonderful numbed-by-grief Lauren Bacardi, Patricia Hodge is a hit in two widely differing roles, Jimmy Nail looks exactly like what we have in mind when we think of a fascist London cop, there's a half a dozen of talented actors playing the crooks, and even Colin Dale, despite the posh accent, makes a nice lead and makes you wish you could stay a little boy for all your life. A lot of the humour is still there, but since it's mostly on a verbal level one should not rely on subtitles.

I read the book, and was also quite curious about the film. Nick is indeed quite miscast, as is Boyle, but the rest of the cast is quite good.

I think the trouble with the film is that they hadn't enough money to do the really cool scene in which the hotel gets blown up, and more things are missing..

But an A+ for the effort, it's really cool if you read the book.