Diamond Run (1996) User Reviews

Not Likely To Remain In One's Memory.

[rsoonsa · 1/10 · 31 October 2006]

A lightweight crime themed film, with its cast and crew members often doubling, this item is made to a low standard, that it nearly attains. Weakly budgeted and conceptualized, albeit with a long drawn out narrative, it provides little that one will not have seen elsewhere, and done better, but it does contain an element that gives it a small dollop of interest: most of the piece, following initial sequences in New York City, is shot in and about Rutland, Vermont, a picturesque region only seldom utilized by film production companies. Action opens in Manhattan while a band of former Viet Nam veterans, supervised by their erstwhile military field commander, Sloan (Richard Lynch), is in the process of robbing a jewelry store, one that is, as known to the bandits, providing sanctuary for 150 million dollars of cut diamonds, contained within a briefcase. A two man team of New York Police Department detectives intercepts the heist, with a detective along with several of the robbers dying during a resultant shootout, while an unknown female takes the diamond laden briefcase and flees. Because she is not a member of Sloan's entourage, he is naturally dissatisfied with results of the holdup, and a pursuit of the villains by the surviving detective, Jack Cates, makes things even more awkward for the bandits. As Cates has had two of his on duty partners slain by members of the Sloan operation, he vengefully becomes a rogue cop following a spoor into Vermont where he links up with the mysterious female who has seized the diamonds, Megan Marlow, the two of them reluctantly conjoined as they become, in turn, prey of Sloan's minions who are chasing them, all this while the detective mulls over whether he should arrest the woman for the theft or, instead, delve into why Megan apparently matches his loathing for Sloan. Ofttimes, independent films such as this are damagingly cut in order to increase chances of their being distributed, but in this case abler and more substantive editing is wanting, the screenplay being rife with failings in logic as well as continuity, resulting in a tedious production that will cause a viewer's attention to meander long before its pat conclusion. However, the movie is likely to be enjoyed by those who take pleasure in stuntwork and explosive special effects, all performed with efficiency.