Diamonds Are Forever is an entertainment of spectacle and limited ambition, a film that prioritises the pleasures of Sean Connery's return to the Bond role over the thriller intelligence and sophistication of the franchise's strongest entries. Guy Hamilton's 1971 film is not a strong Bond film in narrative terms, but it delivers its pleasures with a confidence and a craft that makes the experience consistently 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, entertaining spectacle with limited 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 Las Vegas car chase is the film's most kinetically exciting sequence, and the oil rig climax gives the film a suitably brash finale. The plot is among the franchise's most overtly comedic to this point, with a lightness of touch that suits the setting but occasionally undermines the tension the franchise's more seriously intentioned entries sustain with greater conviction. The Las Vegas setting is used with a visual energy and a cultural specificity that gives the film a distinctive identity within the Connery era, and the film's willingness to embrace the city's brash excess as a register rather than merely a backdrop gives it a tonal coherence the more generically located franchise entries did not always achieve.
Characters
Connery's return is the film's primary selling point, his Bond as physically authoritative and sharply present as ever, though the more overtly comedic register gives the character a lightness the franchise's more seriously intentioned entries do not share. Jill St. John's Tiffany Case is one of the franchise's most resourceful and entertaining Bond girls of the Connery era, a diamond smuggler of wit and infectious energy whose comic timing suits the film's playful register. Charles Gray's Blofeld is one of the franchise's most theatrical villains, a character of considerable comic energy and limited menace whose multiple doubles give the film its most inventive conceit. Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are among the franchise's most memorably eccentric henchmen, a pairing of deadpan menace whose scenes give the film some of its most enjoyable moments.
Tone
Hamilton pitches the film at a register of broad comic energy and popular entertainment, a decision that suits the Las Vegas setting's brash character. The film is at its most rewarding when the setting and the comedic register are most directly combined, and least convincing when it reaches for the more serious register of the franchise's stronger entries. The decision to play the material for laughs rather than tension is a deliberate creative choice rather than a failure of ambition, and the film rewards audiences who approach it on those terms.
Meaning / Themes
Wealth and destructive power sit at the film's centre: the diamond smuggling operation that funds Blofeld's ambitions, and the capacity for destruction that wealth enables, handled with a Las Vegas-inflected excess that suits the film's overtly entertaining register. The setting's association with spectacle, artifice, and the performance of wealth gives Blofeld's destructive vanity a thematic resonance the more neutrally located franchise entries did not always achieve. The film's comic treatment of its own formula is also a kind of self-awareness about the franchise's direction, acknowledging the distance it has travelled from the espionage seriousness of the early Connery entries.
Direction
Hamilton's direction is confident and entertainingly assured, with a command of the film's set-pieces that gives each sequence a clarity and a logic the franchise's more workmanlike entries do not always achieve. The Las Vegas car chase is the film's directorial highlight, a kinetically exciting sequence whose two-wheeled stunt gives the film one of its most purely entertaining practical moments. The use of Las Vegas locations is among the most visually distinctive of Hamilton's Bond entries, giving the neon-lit casino sequences a visual energy that suits the film's playful register. Shirley Bassey's title song is one of the franchise's most powerfully atmospheric, and John Barry's score is characteristically assured.
Cultural Reception
Diamonds Are Forever was a major commercial success on its release, confirming Connery's continued box office appeal and the franchise's capacity for popular entertainment. The critical consensus has acknowledged its entertainment value while recognising its more limited ambitions, and the film is now most readily placed among the more enjoyable entries in the franchise's less seriously intentioned tier.
Who Should Watch
A natural watch for Connery completists and a rewarding film for general audiences who approach it as popular entertainment rather than a seriously intentioned thriller. Those drawn to Las Vegas as a setting will find Hamilton uses it with more visual intelligence than the city's reputation for cinematic excess might suggest.
Final Verdict: An entertaining Bond film of considerable spectacle and deliberate lightness. Connery's return gives the film a star power and physical presence the Lazenby entry did not share, Jill St. John's Tiffany Case is among the Connery era's most engaging Bond girls, and Guy Hamilton's direction gives the Las Vegas setting a brash confidence that keeps Diamonds Are Forever consistently enjoyable despite its more limited ambitions.
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