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Domino
Movie Stats & Links |
Starring: |
Keira Knightley,
Lucy Liu, Christopher Walken, Mena Suvari, Mickey Rourke,
Jacqueline Bisset, Delroy Lindo |
MPAA Rated: |
R |
Released By: |
New Line Cinema |
Web Site: |
www.dominomovie.com |
Kiddie Movie: |
Only if you want
your little girl to be a bounty hunter. |
Date Movie: |
If she likes some
violence. |
Gratuitous Sex: |
Keira gets naked.
It's kinda artsy, but I'm liking her mosquito bites. |
Gratuitous
Violence: |
It's rated R and
about bounty hunters, what do you think? |
Action: |
Not really,
although you would think there would be. |
Laughs: |
Some pretty good
lines. |
Memorable
Scene: |
The "Mix-ed Race"
Flowchart at the Jerry Springer Show. |
Memorable
Quote: |
"He hasn't aged
well." |
Directed By: |
Tony Scott |
Produced By: |
Samuel Hadida,
Ridley Scott, Tony Scott |
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Domino
A Movie Review |
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I know it’s sometimes a tough call for moviemakers: Do
you take what can be a pretty good action movie and just let
it be an action movie, or do you try to make it more artsy,
with more symbolism and tricky camera-work, than just people
kicking ass? For "Domino," they opted for the latter, and as
much as I could appreciate it, I could have probably
appreciated it even more if the story wasn’t so convoluted.
I’ll try to give you just enough without giving too much
away…
"Domino," as the opening credits state, is "a movie based
on a true story, sort of." Pretty much Domino Harvey was the
daughter of a Hollywood screen star, her father, who died
when she was a young girl. That much is true. The movie says
that mom tried to stay tight in the Hollywood circles, that
Domino was a model and in a sorority, but I can’t confirm
any of that. Domino Harvey became a bounty hunter in the
movie. That much is true. Then there is the rest of the
movie which starts as a story that seems believable, up
until the armored car heist.
Alright, as the movie gives us, we see Domino (Keira
Knightley) being interrogated by the FBI, agent Taryn (Lucy
Liu). Taryn is trying to get the story of what happened to
the money in the armored car. From this point it is a series
of flashbacks as the "sort of" stuff really starts to take
shape. We see Domino shuttled to boarding school, break a
nose in a sorority house, dressing kinda slutty, and hooking
up with Ed (Mickey Rourke) and his partner Choco (Edgar
Ramirez), thus her transformation into being a bounty
hunter. Domino is hot, can kick some ass, and there’s some
sexual tension between her and Choco. The story is pretty
simply, Domino, Ed, and Choco, go about their bounty hunting
business, but then get approached by a reality TV producer,
Mark (Christopher Walken). He convinces our trio that they
should be on a reality TV show about their work as bounty
hunters, and they agree.
But there is a problem in bounty hunter land, namely that
their major employer, Bail Bondsman Claremont Williams (Delroy
Lindo), has cooked up a scheme to get $300,000 for one of
his women, Lateesha (Mo’Nique), who needs the money for a
lifesaving surgery for her granddaughter. Oddly enough, now
the mob, a casino owner, the FBI, and dozens of other are
involved, and the story turns from kinda fun and serious, to
just a convoluted mess, which I probably could have gone
along with if the movie was just normal action fare, but
with it trying to be artsy and with a message, I just got
tired of following it all especially when some people who
are supposed to be dead really aren’t, there had to be an
easier way to get into that freezer, and the poor throw
money into the air only to see some of it blow away.
Look, I loved the characters. Keira, Mickey, Edgar, and
damn just about everyone else were fabulous in all of their
roles. Even Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green were great at
playing themselves. And damn, Keira even gets naked. But the
story, especially as it played out, wasn’t an artsy story at
the end, it was an action story and I think should have been
treated as such, kinda a "Lethal Weapon" but much darker.
Convoluted stories generally work when we aren’t trying to
take the movie too seriously, but "Domino" was set up as a
serious movie, and a convoluted plot development just falls
apart.
In the end, I really wanted to like "Domino," but just
couldn’t, even with the blatant nudity and gratuitous
violence. It’s 3 stars out of 5 for "Domino."
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on Right!! L8R!!! |