The scene with this annoying twerp in Diamonds Are Forever that loses to Tiffany Case in the carnival game is one of the reasons why the movie feels campy. And it’s a perfect example of why kids should never be in Bond movies (ahem, No Time To Die, ahem). To be fair, the early 1970s push to reposition Las Vegas as a family-friendly destination explains why the sequence exists, but justification isn’t the same as merit.
Most of the Las Vegas scenes feel gimmicky and tonally out of place, diminishing the sophistication that defines a Bond movie. A far better approach would have leaned into the city’s seedier underbelly, and maybe even revisiting the criminal mafia networks hinted at in Goldfinger seen just seven years earlier to create some continuity.
While the movie was designed to keep things light, I can’t shake the feeling that a darker take on Diamonds Are Forever could have been something special.
