Diamond Dogs
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
SRP $24.96

Director: Samuel Dolhasca
Stars: Dolph Lundgren, William Shriver, Raicho Vasilev

Dolph Lundgren stars in this B (C really) movie about Xander Ronson, an adventurer for hire that finds himself needing to raise $20,000 or else he will be locked up in a Chinese jail. This is important because I can’t think of any other reason he would take on a job for Mr. Chambers, an annoying rich guy that is the human equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.

So we have a grizzled hero, an exotic location, we now need a great artifact waiting to be found.

Chambers is searching for a great Buddhist tapestry. Unfortunately for him (and our hero), he is not the only one looking for it. A dastardly Russian is also on a quest for said tapestry.

To make matters worse, there is a curse on the tapestry as well. An annoying boss, Russian baddies and a curse…Xander has his work cut out for him.

Dolph is actually pretty entertaining here. My only real experience with Dolph is Rocky IV. Seeing as how I am trying to forget Rocky III-V, I know virtually nothing about him. So initially I was pleasantly surprised by him (and Diamond Dogs) and settled in for some low-budget action flick fun.

Then reality set in.

While Dolph is fun, the film itself simply fails to deliver. The characters are non-existant (No problem, I expected that) and the diaglogue is bad (Again, no shock), but when the action is less than stellar, there is a problem.

And that is my biggest disappointment with Diamond Dogs, the zip never seems to zap. Oh, there are some fun scenes, the overall DD drags too much, with too little for us to care about.

Apparently Dolph ended up directing a fair portion of the film, that might explain some of the disjointedness.

After watching DD, I can’t help but wonder what Dolph might be able to do in a real film with a quality cast, crew and script?

As tough as his character, Xander, had it in the film, it sounds like Dolph’s challenges were even worse.

Um…buy Diamond Dogs from Amazon???

Jeremy Lynch
For more reviews from myself, and the rest of the Crimespree crew, check out the index of reviews.