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"Domino" effect? Sort of... |
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Written by NED O'REILLY
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Thursday, 13 October 2005 |
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Abraham Lincoln once said, “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.” If you like action flicks, you’re the target audience, but there still are some significant problems with the film, not least of which is the large number of characters.
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"Domino"
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Entertainment
Art
Directed by Tony Scott
Screenplay by Richard Kelly
Starring Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramirez
Rated R for brutal violence, language, drug use, and nudity
Released October 13, 2005
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| | | “Domino” is a crime story told in comic book/rock video/art film style. Garish colors, blemish-revealing closeups, and constant time jumps rule the day. Fast edits, multiple panels, and a lot of sub-titles (for various reasons) help you follow a confusing plotline that’s loaded with slimy characters and actors you’ve seen somewhere before. A disclaimer at the opening of the film declares that it’s a “…true story. Sort of,” giving director Tony Scott free reign to play up the smoking, the scowling, the posing, and the high testosterone levels in favor of any real character development. Even the leads are defined primarily by their hormones.
Domino (Keira Knightley) is a bad little rich girl, bored with being a fashion model, who attends a seminar on bounty hunting, discovers it’s a rip-off, then toughs her way into a job with Ed (Mickey Rourke) and Choco (Edgar Ramirez) because she wants to do “something fun.” Battle tough Ed is older, visibly scarred, and even-keeled. Shaggy-haired Choco is an ex-con whose psycho rage lurks just below his lean and sexy exterior.
Behind the scenes, Claremont Williams (Delroy Lindo) provides the team’s intelligence and jobs, and eventually assigns them a driver, Alf (Rizwan Abassi), an Afghan who, disappointingly, turns terrorist before the film is over. Claremont is tight with a team of DMV employees (Mo’Nique Imes-Jackson, Macy Gray, Shondrella Avery, and Michael Kuroiwa), who provide him with the data needed to track down bond shirkers.
After gaining fast notoriety as a woman in a man’s profession, Domino attracts the attention of a reality TV producer (Christopher Walken) who, along with his assistant (Mena Suvari) provides much of the film’s comic relief. The film crew is made up (inexplicably) of TV actors Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green (playing themselves) who later fill the important role of “celebrity hostages.”
A plot involving a terminally ill child, a team of thieves called the First Ladies, some college age sons of the Mafia, a Las Vegas hotelier, and an armored car carrying ten million dollars is as difficult to follow as it is to write about. A sidetrack to the Jerry Springer show and a shootout between trailer homes don’t help. Before it’s all over, none of the characters is heroic in that they all make questionable moral choices, and lots of people are dead. The interrogation scenes between Domino and a calm, cool FBI agent (Lucy Liu) actually do help the story, but you find yourself wishing Liu had been allowed to kick some ass.
As an action film, Domino has what you’re after, but as a character study, it falls short. As for film technique, fans of “Sin City” should dig this, although it’s not noirish, but modern and hyper-realistic. One of those flicks where you’ll be saying, “That was cool,” a lot, but not remembering anybody’s names. Powered by AkoComment 2.0!
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Other Recent Articles by NED O''REILLY:Big summer thrills in MI:3"Stick It", "Stick It" Good"V" is captivating movie-goingNot the man, but amusing anywayOscars spread the wealth
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