• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

23. DIAMOND MEN

(2001)

Directed by Daniel M. Cohen

Screenplay by Daniel M. Cohen

Actors:

ROBERT FORSTER

DONNIE WAHLBERG

JASMINE GUY

BESS ARMSTRONG

GEORGE COE

KRISTEN MINTER

One of the most arresting films I saw when I was a teenager was Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, a vivid, highly charged drama about a TV reporter covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago when rioting breaks out. I’ve never forgotten the impact it had on me, or how good its leading actor was. Somehow, Robert Forster never got the breaks he should have in the years that followed that triumphant role. He starred in a short-lived TV series, Nokia, and eventually took whatever jobs came along, even in low-end direct-to-video fare. I met him during this period and was struck by the fact that he didn’t express any bitterness about his career. On the contrary, he signed up with a speaker’s bureau to talk (gratis) at various clubs and civic groups about the power of positive thinking.

Finally, in 1997, Quentin Tarantino wrote a leading role in Jackie Brown with Forster in mind, and refused to hear of anyone else playing the part of the world-weary bail bondsman. His pitch-perfect performance earned Forster an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor, and he hasn’t stopped working since. He plays a lot of cops and a fair number of fathers, but there is one common thread: he’s always believable.

There aren’t many leading roles for an older actor, but at least one stands out, in a modest but irresistibly likable film called Diamond Men. Forster is right on the money as Eddie Miller, a veteran diamond salesman who supplies local jewelry stores throughout Pennsylvania. After he recovers from a heart attack, he is told that he can no longer be insured to carry his supply of diamonds. This is a crippling blow, much worse than the heart attack: selling gems is all he’s ever done. But before he’s put out to pasture, he reluctantly agrees to break in a new guy on his route, a neophyte named Bobby (Donnie Wahlberg).

As the two men drive around the state, visiting old and trusted clients, Eddie tries to impart some wisdom, and tricks of the trade, to his would-be replacement. Gradually, Bobby begins to appreciate that Eddie knows his stuff and isn’t a bad guy, even if he is “old.” In fact, the younger man tries to help his widowed mentor open himself up to female companionship, for the first time since his wife passed away some years ago.

Diamond Men is built on a formula, but it’s well done, and first-time writer-director Daniel Cohen draws on his own experience as a diamond salesman to give the movie a foundation of credibility. Those telling details of salesmanship, along with keen observations of life on the road, add up. Cohen’s screenplay takes off in unexpected directions, leading to a denouement that you may or may not be willing to swallow, but Wahlberg’s amiability, and Forster’s unshowy, rock-solid performance, make the movie impossible to dislike.

24. DICK

(1999)

Directed by Andrew Fleming

Screenplay by Andrew Fleming and Sheryl Longin

Actors:

KIRSTEN DUNST

MICHELLE WILLIAMS

DAN HEDAYA

SAUL RUBINEK

WILL FERRELL

BRUCE MCCULLOCH

DAVE FOLEY

JIM BREUER

TERI GARR

ANA GASTEYER

HARRY SHEARER

RYAN REYNOLDS

G. D. SPRADLIN

Not many comedies can be clever and silly at the same time, but Dick can make that claim. Director and cowriter Andrew Fleming (who made The Craft and more recently Hamlet 2) bemoans the fact that almost everyone in the movie became famous after its release. But perhaps its two appealing stars and supporting cast of able comedic performers who gained fame on Kids in the Hall, Saturday Night Live, and elsewhere will attract people to this little-known film. Dick remains a bright, original comedy with an ingenious premise.

Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams play teenage best friends, one of whom happens to live at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., in the early 1970s. When they sneak downstairs one night to mail a letter to the Bobby Sherman fan club, they put tape over the