DIAMOND CARTEL is one of the worst films I've seen in a while, and I've seen a lot of them. It also happens to be the first film I've seen from Kazakhstan, which doesn't bode too well. This is a messy thriller with barely any kind of plot, just various 'good' and 'bad' characters chasing each other around, before finally coming together for a big shoot-out at the climax. The Kazakh leads are terrible and wooden in the extreme and the whole film has a too-bright look to it, with CGI backdrops throughout; even the main actress looks constantly airbrushed.Literally the only thing this mess of a movie has going for it is the cast, with lots of old-time faces showing up for cameos. The worst of these is poor old Peter O'Toole, whose swansong this is; his voice is dubbed over in a very insulting way. Michael Madsen shows up for five minutes and Don "The Dragon" Wilson sits at a table alongside Olivier Gruner and Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, perhaps remembering their '90s heydays. Armand Assante chews the scenery horribly as the villain of the piece, while Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa does his usual thing. Best of all is the great Bolo Yeung, who at least gets one (brief) fight scene. Other than the cameos and the fun ending, this film's terrible, so you have been warned.

Calling this an action movie is a stretch since there are only 3 or 4 very short action scenes all under 1 or 2 minutes. For the most part this is a crime/drama with a lot of people sitting around talking. Armand gets the most screen time. Bolo and Don are wasted. Bolo has one short fight where he throws two punches. That's it.The cinematography is decent which is why I'm giving it 3 stars. Having this many b movie stars in one place should be a treat, but most of these are cameo appearances only. I ended up fast forwarding through the movie in a futile search for the action. One final note: the climax made no sense any way you look at it. These characters are truly stupid. Skip this and go watch Skin Trade instead.

This is one of those low budget movies some of the talking is dubbed, the acting is really bad the CGI computer special effects are bad, there are a few movie errors, i only gave it 4/10 and I think that's being kind had more money been spent on it with some good actors it would have been a good movie

I've heard over the years that Jerry Lewis is revered in France. Apparently, in Kazakhstan, they revere 80's American crap action movies. Apparently, they study them closely. Somebody got enough money to get some big and small western names, some pretty starlets, a whole bunch of tough looking people to play actors acting in a crap action movie, an arsenal of weapons, blanks and squibs and then set out to deliberately (it can't be an accident) re-create the best of the worst of the 80's drive-in fodder. They even got them a young French Keanu clone. The only reason it's in English is because they dubbed (with the exception of Assante and Madsen) essentially the entire movie and instructed the voice actors to disregard what was on the screen and concentrate on enunciation. They even dub O'Toole for the five minutes he's in it.Early on, I thought Armand Assante ("Paradise Alley") was going to be big. Here he shows why that never happened. We already know Michael Madsen will say yes to a paycheck. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it gets worse: all three of these big names signed on for a two picture deal. This is the second. This one is probably better.On the other hand, if you like 80's crap, this is real good.That this would end up being Peter O'Toole's last film, that his career would end with three strikes, is an unfortunate illustration of the mundane reality of the glamorous film business.