Domino Review
by Jerry Saravia (faustus_08520 AT yahoo DOT com)May 16th, 2006
DOMINO (2005)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Two stars
I have reviewed the frenetic, souped-up style of "Domino" before so, frankly, anything I say about it has been said countless times before. "Domino" is a loud, obnoxious, brash, excessive affront to anyone's good senses - an anti-cinematic style where there is no style. Director Tony Scott is not my cup of tea (though his best work might still be "Crimson Tide") and this movie is something of a bore.
Domino Harvey (Kiera Knightley) is based on the real-life bounty hunter who died of a drug overdose at the age of 35. Domino was also Lawrence Harvey's daughter, the late actor who died the year Domino was born. Why this rich girl from the school of 90210 decided to become a bounty hunter is never fully explained. She is a tough girl who defies sororities with solid punches to the mouth and basically defies everyone. She is amoral, sexy, relentless, kind of like the movie itself. She joins a bounty hunter team led by Ed Mosbey (Mickey Rourke), a hardened
bounty hunter who's seen it all. His partner is Choco (Edgar Ramirez) who insists on speaking Spanish at all times, though Domino never understands one word. They all work for a bail bondsman, Claremont Williams
(Delroy Lindo), who organizes a course on bounty-hunting that turns out to be a scam (or so I thought considering one scene shows Domino winning a Bounty Hunter of
the Year award but I suppose that is part of the scam.)
There is a plot here involving a double-cross where Mob money is laundered and we get thieves wearing First Lady masks. There is some attempt at social commentary about the "Jerry Springer show," some attempt at seeing how corrupt DMV is, and a comical attempt at seeing the insatiable need for reality TV programming with
Christopher Walken making a welcome appearance.
In other words, excepting the DMV angle, nothing new.
"Domino" has a lot up its sleeve but it never draws any cards. The movie is so hyperkinetic that it is a chore to illustrate what the movie is trying to say. If you title a movie with the main character's name, then it should be about the character. Domino Harvey, as written
by Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko"), is given no real insight and no real shadings of a character worth
spending time with. Mostly we get loud shootouts,
loud music, all intercut into an overloaded, overlong music video. And yes, we get the customary jump cuts,
switch of film stocks every few seconds, scenes that are speeded-up then rewound with a different result, flashes of white dissolved from grainy, washed-out colors to brighter ones - basically, everything that you see in TV shows and commercials. It's not so much that
Tony Scott's filmmaking techniques are grandiose - his editing is. It is a pumped-up, drug-addled, airless affair of a movie, but not really a movie. In the end, you'll ask, who was that chick masquerading as a
bounty hunter anyway?
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