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'Diamonds' By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 18, 2000

Kirk Douglas (right) plays a former boxer in "Diamonds." (Miramax)

Let me be the first to applaud Kirk Douglas for fighting back from a debilitating stroke to act again. Let me be the last to recommend the horrible movie he has chosen. He's Harry Agensky, a former welterweight world champion known as The Polish Prince, who has suffered a terrible stroke and the loss of his late wife. Harry doesn't want to end up in a retirement home eating sloppy food. So he figures it's time to finance his golden years by retrieving a cache of diamonds some hood called "Duff the Muff" gave him years ago for throwing a fight.

The gems are hidden in the wall of some house in Reno. If only Harry could remember the address. Accompanied unwillingly by his whiny, spineless son, Lance (Dan Aykroyd), and his spunky grandson, Michael (Corbin Allred), Harry embarks on a diamond-finding trip that takes the three to the casinos and a whorehouse run by a classy madame called Sin-Dee (Lauren Bacall). This movie just gets worse and worse. Douglas doesn't exactly transcend his one-dimensionally butt-slapping, cantankerous role. Bacall looks lost. Aykroyd can look back on this role as the worst and most implausible in a chequered career. And scriptwriter Allan Aaron Katz's gag-inducing sentimentalism could induce asphyxia.

DIAMONDS (PG-13, 90 minutes) – Contains awful writing, sexual situations and obscenity.

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"Diamonds"
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