BLACK DIAMOND - Mark Reviews Movies

Black Diamond, Brainstorm Media

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 9, 2025

The most notable aspect of Black Diamond, a dull attempt at a thriller, might be its setting. Transferring a noir-like plot from the city or desert to the snowy mountains of Colorado, writer/director Judd Bloch gives us one slightly different thing, at least. The distinction is entirely superficial, which means it does fit in with the rest of the movie.

The premise revolves around a mysterious cowboy and freelance handyman named Jesse (Jake McLaughlin), who makes money catering to the needs and whims of rich people with vacation homes in and near Telluride. Our first sight of the man is of him shooting someone off-screen, while noting via voice-over that this isn't usually the kind of business the locals have with wealthy visitors to the area. One would hope that to be case, and surely the local tourism board must feel some relief that Jesse clears that up for everyone.

After that generic flash-forward, the screenplay brings us back to Jesse driving Elena (Inbar Lavi) to the lavish cabin recently purchased by her boyfriend Spencer (Ray Panthaki). Spencer's the kind of guy whose job is basically business and money, making it quite easy to dislike him from the start and for him to disappear from the story under vague circumstances. Both of these qualities are important for the plot, of course, as Elena and Jesse share vapid stares in each other's direction in between his work on the cabin and her offers of assorted alcoholic drinks to the handyman.

The two kind of flirt in the way that characters who will be caught up in a moment or two of passion must, which is to say that the chemistry between the actors here feels entirely perfunctory. Jesse speaks enigmatically about his past, his feelings, and his ambitions, but he does play the guitar and sing well enough to catch Elena's attention, while the cowboy hat smartly hides the fact that his hair is tied up in a bun. There aren't many surprises in Bloch's script, but this particular hairstyle certainly is one for a rough and rugged man like Jesse, who knows his way around a hot tub, the cabin's sump pump, and other odd jobs around the house, while also being some kind of threat to someone eventually.

For her part, Elena is pretty direct about her intentions with Spencer. She's in it for the money, and with Jesse, she eventually lets the flirting go multiple steps further very, very quickly in a very, very quick bit of what must be very, very uncomfortable sex on the wooden railing of a balcony. While the flirtation is mechanical, the sex turns out to be oddly awkward and silly.

At first, this seems like a one-time thing for her, because she says as much, and a reason for him to keep showing up at all hours with the hope that it'll happen again. Spencer comes back from the business trip that left Elena alone, by the way, and one of the more amusing details here is just how sound a sleeper the guy is. Elena and Jesse go at it in one of the cabin's rooms later, and Spencer just snoozes through it all, only awakening in time to notice his girlfriend downstairs in a black, lacy slip. No further questions are necessary, apparently.

Eventually, the movie, Bloch's debut, reveals more plotting, involving a break-in to steal a painting that Spencer might have obtained by questionable means, and the hints of some potentially intriguing ideas about the differences between the two men. Spencer seems the confident type, but confronted with a chance to stop a series of crimes being committed in his own home, he freezes, leaving Jesse to do yet another job for the wealthy guy. Instead of addressing such notions, though, Bloch spends the rest of the movie piecing together the puzzle of what the robbers wanted, who was behind the attempted crime, why that person planned the scheme, the type of people these characters are, and what they actually want from each other.

It's not much of a mystery, obviously, because the characters are so plainly established and so half-heartedly developed that only the plot really matters. It's easy enough to see through the characters of Black Diamond, because they're merely pawns in this game, and because of that, the game itself is pretty much completed in our minds as soon as the rules are set.

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