Domino
- Domino
- Tony Scott remakes himself again, this time on peyote. Keira gets left in the dust.
Remember how insane it was in True Romance when all of the various plot lines climaxed in a multi-way shoot out in that posh hotel room? Almost everyone got shot, couches and tables exploded with gunfire, and, in a interesting move for an action movie, the main characters just crawled around trying to get the fuck out of the place. Then remember how Tony Scott did that again in Enemy of the State (probably not)? Well guess what, that’s how Domino ends too.
Domino is the epitome of Tony Scott’s current throw-everything-to-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks style of filmmaking. You have to wonder if Scott even shows up on set…his recent films look like collaborations between music video cinematographers and AVID editors who have downloaded way too many plug-ins.
Domino comes off as only a minor player in a supposed biography; though the movie is only “Sort of” based on a true story. Domino Harvey (sexy beanpole etc etc Keira Knightly) is the cutest bounty hunter LA. She was the daughter of Laurence Harvey, most famous for the soldier being controlled by Communists in The Manchurian Candidate. She may or may not have been a lesbian. And she’s dead (notice the past tense in this paragraph). The movie itself would rather show us a convoluted inside job heist involving Delroy Lindo, gamblers, mobsters, and Mo’nique.
The movie, as hyper-kinetic as it is on the surface, actually feels like 127 minutes of exposition, leading up to nothing. Its one big flashback sequence, with Domino talking to a CIA agent played by Lucy Liu, and most of the script is actually Domino’s VO. We probably hear more of Domino that way than actually interacting with the other actors.
In all, the film is a big messy mess. Its barely worth renting, if only for Keira’s Mescline-induced nude scene and possibly Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green’s only likable performances ever.
February 27th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Ian and Brian were awesome. Kira was kinda hot, though not as impressive as I’d hoped. The movie as a whole sucked and your 2.5 star rating is generous.
February 27th, 2006 at 10:51 am
I watched this last night and I was disappointed. The guy at blockbuster said it was action packed from the beginning to the end. I found it very slow with too much “back-story”. But Keira Knightly is still hott.
February 27th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
movies like this make me feel old…there are so many of the supposed cool, edgy, violent movies that i just don’t respond to…either that or (more likely) they all suck now. domino is no true romance, same goes for boondock saints (reservoir dogs), spun (requiem), salton sea (memento).
in defense of the 2.5…boobies
February 27th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Boobies make the 2.5 okay…
Never saw Spun or Salton Sea.
But I wouldn’t compare Boondock Saints to Reservoir Dogs at all. I could see the desire to compare them, but can’t justify the comparisons.
And don’t stone me, but Memento is/was/forever will be overrated and merely mediocre.
February 27th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
sorry, gonna have to back up those memento comments…
February 27th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Well, the so-called “twist” of the movie was not surprising at all… and the style of the movie was not really anything new, it was just new to the mainstream. I guess I can take back calling it a mediocre movie in that it brough film noir to the forefront and did so with style. However, it didn’t blow me away and was not particularly entertaining to me.
I guess that’s simply a taste issue, but I will stick to saying that it did not use a format that truly was new, it just hadn’t been in center stage of American mainstream cinema until Nolan did it with Memento.
That being said, I probably would never choose to watch it again, but if were on in a room, I wouldn’t walk out.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Yeah every other fucking movie before Memento was the same god damn 10 minute intervals in reverse format where the end of the movie was actually the beginning and vice versa!
February 27th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
i’ve never really thought of it as a twist ending movie, the twist is in the presentation. Every other indie hit is some sort of noir anyway…tarantino, usual suspects, the last seduction etc etc. just find it hard to believe that you can’t be impressed by the structure, the preparation that had to go into it, and the confidence that such a challenging narrative would find an audience at the box office.
besides the backwards episode of seinfeld (underrated!), what other movies are like this? pulp fiction and other chopped up narratives dont count.
February 27th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Alex, I’m hard pressed for an answer to what movies use the saem structure exactly. So, I will bow down defeated and simply admit that I must dislike Memento out of sheer taste and nothing else.
I think that any movie with massive hype surrounding it is hard for me to like, it’s like a phobia or disease I think.