Just Ask for Diamond

Take a wise cracking thirteen year old kid whose elder brother is an inept gumshoe, a host of classic British Actors (Jimmy Nail, Susannah York, Saeed Jaffrey, Roy Kinnear) amongst others, an intelligent plot and witty script from the pen of Anthony Horowitz (based on his own novel 'The Falcons Malteser'), a cult - and rather obscure - Brit heavy rock band (Mammoth) to play a gang of heavies; film it around North London in a classic film noir style and sprinkle with a cartload of tongue in cheek references to some of the greatest noir thrillers of all time and you have cooked up a rather tasty family friendly film that is a real joy to watch.

This film works on so many levels, it's well paced with so great moments of slap stick (such as the dropping of a grand piano onto a van full of bad guys) and full of crooks cartoony enough to entertain the kiddies, yet at the same time if full of enough references and in jokes to movies such as Kiss Me Deadly, Cassablanca and (of course) The Maltese Falcon to keep the hardened film buff entertained for hours.

This is the kind of left field quirky comedy that the British do best and is well worth 94 minutes of anybodies day to watch.

I have been a great fan of all Anthony Horowitz books and the Falcon Malteaser was the very first one i read. The afternoon after seeing 'Stormbreaker' i was in the supermarket and found this film on sale for 99p.

I brought it home fully prepared to be disappointed but instead found it to be thoroughly entertaining. Nick is absolutely adorable and streetwise. Tim is dopey without being too over the top (which would have been very easy to do).

Often with book-films the screenwriter gets bogged down with what he is 'supposed' to put in and you often feel the story is thin and stretched, more like an assembly of memorable moments - racing to get through the story. The best thing about Horowitz (and you can see this in stormbreaker too) is that he writes a film that can completely stand alone and doesn't need the novelty of having a book behind it. (something that really comes across in the Harry Potter films) He knows the book and the characters inside out and isn't afraid to break from it a little. (not too much, just at those moments that seem to jar when a writer has stayed 'too true') Anyway. The film is based around two brothers, Herbert and Nick. Their parents have moved away and Herbert is looking after his 13 year old brother alone. Herbert has renamed himself 'Tim Diamond' and is working as a private detective. I don't want to give the story away - but it is engaging and satisfyingly intricate with plenty of enjoyable characters and plot twists.

Definitely worth an hour and a half of your time - silly theme tune and all!

This film is fantastic Colin Dale is excellent as the brains of the Tim Diamond detective agency and noone could better Patricia Hodge's performance as the common charlady turned sleekly seductive Brenda Von Falkenberg.

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!

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.