Diamonds Are Forever is a crowd-pleasing entertainment of genuine spectacle and limited dramatic ambition, a film that prioritises the pleasures of Sean Connery's return to the Bond role over the dramatic sophistication and genuine thriller intelligence of the franchise's finest entries. Guy Hamilton's 1971 film is not the finest Bond film. From Russia with Love and Goldfinger surpass it in every dramatic and creative dimension. But as a demonstration of the franchise's capacity for spectacular crowd-pleasing entertainment, Diamonds Are Forever delivers its pleasures with a confidence and a craft that makes the experience genuinely enjoyable.
At a Glance
Director: Guy Hamilton
Runtime: 120 minutes
Starring: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood, Jimmy Dean
Release: 1971
Critics Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, crowd-pleasing entertainment with limited dramatic ambition)
Audience Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, enjoyable)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Bond investigates a diamond smuggling operation that leads to Blofeld's plan to use a space-based laser weapon. The plot is constructed with adequate dramatic intelligence and genuine entertainment economy, establishing its Las Vegas setting and its spectacular set-pieces with enough clarity to make the experience consistently entertaining. The Las Vegas car chase is the film's most kinetically exciting sequence, and the oil rig climax gives the film a spectacular finale of adequate dramatic consequence.
Characters
Connery's return is the film's primary selling point, and his Bond is as physically authoritative and as casually menacing as ever, though the more overtly comedic register of this entry gives the character a lightness that the franchise's more dramatically serious entries do not always share. Jill St. John's Tiffany Case is the franchise's most resourceful and most purely entertaining Bond girl of the Connery era, a diamond smuggler of genuine wit and genuine physical presence. Charles Gray's Blofeld is the franchise's most theatrically excessive villain, a character of considerable comic energy and limited genuine menace whose multiple disguises give the film its most purely entertaining villain sequences.
Tone
Hamilton pitches the film at a register of spectacular entertainment and genuine comic energy, a decision that suits the Las Vegas setting's more brash and more purely entertaining register. Diamonds Are Forever has a tonal lightness and a comic confidence the franchise's more dramatically serious entries did not attempt, and the film's most enjoyable sequences are those in which the Las Vegas setting and the more overtly comedic register are most directly combined.
Meaning / Themes
The film's central concern is the relationship between wealth and power, between the diamond smuggling operation that funds Blofeld's ambitions and the spectacular destructive capability that wealth enables. This is handled with adequate dramatic intelligence and gives the franchise's central concern with megalomaniacal villainy a Las Vegas-inflected excess that suits the film's more overtly entertaining register.
Casting
Connery is the film's indispensable element, and his return gives the film a star power and a physical authority that makes the experience consistently entertaining despite the more limited dramatic material. St. John is the franchise's most purely entertaining Connery-era Bond girl. Gray's Blofeld is the franchise's most theatrically excessive villain.
Direction
Hamilton's direction is technically accomplished and entertainingly assured. The Las Vegas car chase is the film's directorial highlight, a spectacular pursuit through the casino city's neon-lit streets that communicates the film's commitment to crowd-pleasing action entertainment. Shirley Bassey's title song is one of the franchise's most powerhouse vocal performances, and John Barry's score is characteristically excellent.
Who Should Watch
Franchise fans will find it a genuinely entertaining entry, approached as a crowd-pleasing spectacle rather than a dramatic achievement. Those who approach it expecting the sophistication of From Russia with Love or the creative precision of Goldfinger will find a film of considerably more limited ambition.
Final Verdict: A crowd-pleasing entertainment of genuine spectacle and limited dramatic ambition. Sean Connery's return gives the film a star power that makes the experience consistently entertaining, Jill St. John's Tiffany Case is the franchise's most purely entertaining Connery-era Bond girl, and Guy Hamilton's direction delivers the Las Vegas setting with a comic confidence and a spectacular energy that makes Diamonds Are Forever one of the franchise's most purely enjoyable if least dramatically ambitious entries.
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