Domino (2005)

Director:

Tony Scott

Writers (WGA):

Richard Kelly (screenplay)
Richard Kelly (story) ...

Release Date:

14 October 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

I Am a Bounty Hunter

Plot:

A recounting of Domino Harvey's life story. The daughter of actor Laurence Harvey turned away from her career as a Ford model to become a bounty hunter.

Plot Keywords:

Bounty Hunter | FBI | Mafia | Model | Split Screen

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Keira Knightley	...	Domino Harvey
Mickey Rourke	...	Ed Moseby
Édgar Ramírez	...	Choco (as Edgar Ramirez)
Delroy Lindo	...	Claremont Williams
Mo'Nique	...	Lateesha Rodriguez
Mena Suvari	...	Kimmie
Macy Gray	...	Lashandra Davis
Jacqueline Bisset	...	Sophie Wynn
Dabney Coleman	...	Drake Bishop
Brian Austin Green	...	Himself
Ian Ziering	...	Himself
Stanley Kamel	...	Anthony Cigliutti
Peter Jacobson	...	Burke Beckett
T.K. Carter	...	Lester Kincaid
Kel O'Neill	...	Frances

Also Known As:

Domino (France)
Домино (Russia) [ru]
Domino (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Domino (Canada: French title) [fr]
Domino (Argentina) [es]
Domino (Greece) [el]
Domino - A Caçadora de Recompensas (Brazil) [pt]
Domino - Live Fast, Die Young (Germany) [de]

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexual content/nudity and drug use.

Runtime:

127 min

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Ireland:16 | UK:15 | Singapore:M18 (cut) | Singapore:M18 | Japan:R-15 | Australia:MA | Netherlands:16 | Finland:K-15 | Indonesia:Dewasa | Brazil:18 | Czech Republic:15 | Philippines:R-13 | Sweden:15 | Germany:16 | Iceland:16 | France:-12 | USA:R (NO. 41704) | Norway:15 | Denmark:15 | South Africa:16 | Malaysia:18PL | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (Ontario) (Canadian Home Video rating) | Canada:18A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba) | Argentina:16 | Hungary:16 | Italy:T | Ireland:18 (DVD rating) | New Zealand:R16

Filming Locations:

Alexandria Hotel - 501 S. Spring Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

New Line Cinema

Trivia:

The word "fuck" and all of its derivatives are said 123 times in the movie.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Choco and Ed are arguing in the hotel room, Choco cocks his revolver twice without uncocking in-between, but this is more likely to be a repetition of the first cocking, which is frequently done throughout the film, repeating lines and actions after they have occurred.

Quotes:

Domino Harvey: [voiceover] Nobody really knows where Ed came from. This much is clear - the man's been places, seen things, lived life. He did a term in Soledad and a term in Angola where he lost a toe during a prison riot. The man's a warroir.

Movie Connections:

Features "The Jerry Springer Show" (1991)

Soundtrack:

Supa Powa

An absolute mess of flash, glitz and muddled romance plus narrative packed into one, overly long chore.

What of Domino did I hate over everything, and I mean everything, else? Perhaps it was the overall glorification of being a bounty hunter; maybe it was the sexism masquerading as an involving and interesting study of a hard bodied female lead character; maybe it was the mere look of the film with its bizarre yellow glow and distorted blue tints or the manner in which it takes an actress like Lucy Lui; who deserves a lot better than this junk; and has her sit there in the one spot in the room the light cannot directly hit with the same dumb look on her face. Maybe it's the editing; that horrid rapid fire editing and the manner in which lines of dialogue echo as they're uttered by people like Kiera Knightly who, if you buy as a bounty hunter, then you'll probably be able to kid yourself into believing the world will end in 2012.

Nobody comes away from Domino with any sort credibility, absolutely nobody at all. It is a painful and misguided experience, taking inspiration from things like Natural Born Killers and letting loose ideas to an audience not even there for them. The principal question is: 'Was Domino supposed to be some kind of comedy?' what with its hilariously bad lead uttering certain lines that desperately want us to think she's coming across as 'tough' but really, she resembles more an arrogant fifteen year old girl on her first day at public school, attempting to impress her peers. There are things you genuinely don't know how to react to, whether they're supposed to be funny or not. If it is supposed to be a comedy, that begs the next question: 'Is the life of a bounty hunter really the sort worth exploiting for laughs?' I don't think so.

The film opens with the title card 'Based on a true story........sort of.' If that's supposed to be some sort of post-modernist technique that enables director Tony Scott to bend and manipulate the story of Domino Harvey for his own unique purpose, then you're simply on another planet. Truth is, in that one opening quote the film identifies the subject matter and the original text before completely copping out and saying 'sort of' which I guess is supposed to enable them to make Domino older than she should be and appear on Jerry Springer. Following this, we learn of Domino's relationship with her father who died in the film when when she was ten or something; here is the first use of the 'sort of' cop out as in real life she was just four. But if the film had gone by reality's dates then her entire drive would've been born out of the death of........her goldfish.

We are then thrust into action with Ed Mosbey (Rourke); Domino (Knightley) herself and would-be love interest Choco (Ramírez). During the scene, an American mother is pinned down via gunfire in her own caravan in the back end of nowhere as she pleads for her son's life to be spared. What a really misguided opening; presenting its three leads as nasty people who break into trailers, fire off weapons at innocents we don't know anything of and come close to shooting their pet dogs.

The immediate feeling is of hatred toward the three leads, a feeling of 'No, why are you doing this? Why is this happening?' Bad seeds are planted and, wouldn't you know it, they stick. The film is painful to watch, excruciating even; as these three mug their way through the piece complete with supporting performances from actors known for playing characters in Beverly Hills 90210. Here is another daft post-modernist slant, people playing themselves and that 'sort of' Joker card being played again. Christopher Walken even pops up in a really stupid role that reeks of Robert Downey Jr's Natural Born Killers character.

So as the film plods on and Domino is cast into Ed and Choco's gang, purely for her good looks I might add, it appears amidst the plot to do with fake driver's registration I.Ds or something that Choco and Domino may have feelings for one another. The problem is, as each performer is doing such a bad job in their respective character; there is no chemistry and no feeling between the two; the film isn't a love story so why even bother going down that road in the first place? Does anyone care about these two characters amidst all the fast edits and stuff blowing up? If there is any 'feeling' between Choco and Domino, it exists on such a small, tiny, minimalist scale that you have to ask why it's even included.

So then the film feels the need to crank things up narrative-wise. We find out the reason for the fake I.Ds that are linked to someone else and a guy talks on a cell phone in a sound proof bubble. The sound proof bubble I can believe but how does he get his phone under the water and into the bubble in the first place without it becoming flooded? He must've swam really quickly – double the speed of the film's fasted edit which means something in the region of .01 of a second. Yeah, sure. The film's story becomes both too complicated and just plain arbitrary before resorting to a really dumb climax in which more stuff blows up. Plus, there's a really distasteful scene to do with a wall chart full of new ethnicities and the film's comedy runs SO dry, that it has to resort to the "Jerry, Jerry!" chant whilst people are on a popular American talk show. When did we last laugh at "Jerry! Jerry!"? when we were, say, seven years old? I came away feeling sad and depressed at such a film's existence.