When I see movies that look similar to The Diplomat on the shelves of the video store, I always smile and contemplate renting it for the heck of it and getting a good laugh at the over-the-top violence and lame dialogue. I find that mindless action films are nourishing to one’s soul, especially when you invite some friends over to help enjoy the film. How’d The Diplomat turn out?

Film

When I put the movie in and the main menu asked if I wanted to play “Part 1” or “Part 2”, I was caught off guard, what I thought was a simple 90 minute brainless action film that looked incredibly cheesy turned out to be a three hour epic espionage thriller… I hit “play” hesitantly, but that doesn’t matter… I still hit play, I realize that now.

The film, also known as “False Witness” is about a man who is being used by drug traffickers to abuse his diplomatic immunity to import drugs into the country. The premise sounds fairly interesting and I wasn’t put off by the length until the film actually started…

To start things of; the dialogue is terrible; whoever wrote the script really must’ve thought they were doing a good job.  The pace is almost at a standstill, it felt like 90% of the film could’ve been cut out and are only in the film because they were trying to make this thing into a mini-series. There are entire sequences of this film that don’t need to be there and not to mention the very liberal amounts of air in sequences that could’ve been cut down to keep the pace up.  Little gags like a guy named “Bill Murray” who gets to say “the cop not the actor” when he introduces himself are so out of place, in fact I never once confused this guy of being an actor…

Not only was the editor sleeping on the job, but the director must’ve been drunk for half of the shots… There are so many jerky shots that don’t match up to other shots in the same scene, causing a jarring viewing experience when cutting between a shaky shot to a still shot and a similar problem comes up during the “Action” scenes… The use of really over-the-top shaky cam footage to cover up inadequate action scenes is an old trick and is used to death.

The action scenes in question seem to have been coordinated by the same guy who was drinking on the job. A scene in which two SUVs surround a car on a street comes to mind… Instead of the car simply taking the sidewalk and driving away leading to a spectacular chase, they decide to open their doors and get into hand-to-hand combat with 8 guys. It felt like whoever wrote these scenes wasn’t really thinking clearly… Whenever one of the two good guys was getting pummelled by two henchmen, one of the 5 or 6 other henchmen standing in the background could’ve easily put an end to the fight… but I guess where would that leave the story? Instead we’re given really unbelievable action sequences that are hard to follow…

It doesn’t help that the sound effects were poorly added to the mix, during said scene there was so many gunshots added, especially at times when the shooter was off-camera that it felt like those henchmen who were standing around in the background were just aimlessly shooting their guns off into the air.

To top of the poor direction, writing, editing and sound design… The acting is bleak. I kept confusing everyone with plywood, which includes Claire Forlani who I was actually interested in seeing. I don’t blame the actors entirely because it is the director’s job to give the actors direction and it’s their call when a good take is captured so I totally blame that guy. I guess what I’m trying to say is whenever the viewing experience becomes a rendition of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and the only entertainment from the film is coming from your own dubbed over dialogue then you know the movie isn’t worth it.

Video

The Diplomat’s video is displayed in using the VC-1 codec and in its original 16×9 aspect ratio. When the movie opens the shots used for the opening title sequence felt like they were shot in SD. At the time I was watching the film on a projector and immediately started to feel my eyes burn out of their sockets. The quality seemed to get better as the film went on, but the digital noise and hazy cast wasn’t much of an improvement.

The black levels are fine, even on my projector, but the colour palette was very plain. At times some of the shots have this softness to them during outdoor scenes but the warmer interior shots lend to more detail being visible… especially skin textures.

Audio

The Diplomat’s sound comes at us using the DTS-HD master audio codec and is definitely a step up from the video quality, but unfortunately that takes us from “crumby” to “mediocre”. The sound effects and dialogue are mixed well and the score comes in nicely at times, but everything feels front heavy with little to no surround atmosphere or low frequency rumble.

The subwoofer barely comes alive during action sequences and some of the sound effects don’t take full effect of the 5.1 codec the film uses… I realize this is for television and all, but as we can see from newer shows, you don’t need to skimp on the details most people have surround sound systems.

Special Features

Fortunately there were no special features to review… I may have quit if I had to re-watch this film with the filmmaker’s commentary discussing their creative decisions. There is a DVD version of the film if you want a frisbee for the dog.

Final Thoughts

The mini-series feels like a longwinded Bourne Identity knock-off. The audio quality isn’t bad but it doesn’t make up for the poor video quality. Save your money and your time. To quote a much better action flick, Lethal Weapon 2; this movie’s diplomatic immunity has been revoked.