Perhaps any movie featuring diamonds should say "Thanks, Elizabeth Taylor" in its closing credits acknowledgments. (In this mildly involving hotel hold-up yarn, Val Kilmer also phones in one of his dippiest performances ever, as Maz the OCD stolen jewels cutter.) Maybe such films also should say "Thanks, Marilyn Monroe." (Kilmer's character is one of the few from the old gang who survive till the end of this story.) Maybe the 2:22 filmmakers got all their prop jewelry from the late night infomercials during which Liz used to shill copies of all those make-up jewels Richard Burton had to substitute for make-up sex when he was too drunk to get it up. (Most of the plot developments of 2:22 have a strong "been-there, done-that" feel, as if the producers gave the screenwriters a file folder containing their favorite dozen heist flick scenes, and told them "pick any six.") The best efforts of the estate lawyers behind the legends of Liz and Marilyn do not change the fact that the diamond cartel has butchered thousands of people, destroyed millions of lives, and stockpiled about 3,457 diamonds of .5 carats or more for every man, woman, and child alive on Earth today--all starting because the price of these relatively common whitened chunks of coal had dropped to 10 cents per carat! (Now, THAT story would make a GREAT feature film, but the South Africans will exterminate Hollywood sooner than see it released.)
Review of 2:22
