(Credit: www.DVDTown.com)
Director:
Tony Scott
Cast:
Keira Knightley……….Domino Harvey
Mickey Rourke……….Ed Moseby
Edgar Ramirez……….Choco
Delroy Lindo……….Claremont Williams
Mo’Nique……….Lateesha Rodriguez
Christopher Walken……….Mark Heiss
Mena Suvari……….Kimmie
Macy Gray……….Lashandra Davis
Jacqueline Bisset……….Sophie Wynn
Dabney Coleman……….Drake Bishop
Lucy Liu……….Taryn Mills
Ian Ziering……….Himself
Brian Austin Green……….Himself
New Line Cinema presents Domino. Written by Richard Kelly. Running time: 128 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence, pervasive language, sexual content/nudity and drug use). Available on DVD: February 21, 2006.
The movie:
There was a time when Tony Scott made some of the best action pictures around. Top Gun, Crimson Tide, and The Last Boy Scout were popcorn staples of the eighties and nineties – and some of his best movies. But when Enemy of the State came out in 1998, Scott changed his approach. And with each subsequent film his shooting style became of greater importance than the actual story.
In Domino, Scott delivers a trigger-happy, balls out, male testosterone crystal meth high. The movie is so tailor made for the MTV generation, and kids with ADD; you really have to admire the extravagance of it all. To describe the movie’s plot in a nutshell could get complicated. A better alternative would be to take a Rorschach test and compare an inkblot to a frame from this movie.
Not many, if any, films need multiple narrations, location indicators, subtitles, or multiple cameras shooting at once. Don’t tell Mr. Scott that. He throws in the kitchen sink, the refrigerator, both ovens, a microwave, and a Mr. Coffee coffeepot to enhance his cosmic symphony of violence.
The story’s idea came from Domino Harvey, a former model turned bounty hunter. In 2003, she was named Bounty Hunter of the Year. Two years later in June she died of a drug overdose at the age of 35. The life she lived was stranger than fiction, but seems like the perfect material for an action flick. The daughter to Laurence Harvey (best remembered from The Manchurian Candidate) and a fashion model, Domino attended the best schools and grew up in the posh, albeit fake, environment of that famous zip code 90210. She worked odd jobs and modeled before becoming a bounty hunter – those professionals who are paid to track down and deliver bail jumpers and other sleazebags. Not necessarily a worthwhile profession, but she did it for the thrill of the hunt, not the money.
Down and out in Beverly Hills, Domino (Keira Knightly) sees an ad for a bounty-hunting course held by a bail bondsman named Claremont Williams (Delroy Lindo), and his top retrievers Ed Mosbey and Choco. During a short intermission, the hunters try to make a quick getaway with all the tuition money; she catches them in the act and throws a knife into Mosbey’s windshield.
Make mistakes and people die. There is no breaking-in period for little, miss sexpot. Domino admits that she has been training for this moment all her life. “Knives, guns, throwing stars. You name it, and I can fight with it.” Choco (Edgar Ramirez) is apprehensive about adding a female to the mix, thus making their tandem a trio. Ed insists that with Domino in tow, people will think they are two of the coolest mothers of all time. But it is Domino who is the coolest bounty hunter of the three. Stuck in one perilous situation where guns are pointed at them in all directions, she calms things down by bumping and grinding on a bad hombre with a lap dance.
You may want a scorecard to keep tabs on the number of supporting characters. There’s Alf (Rizwan Abbasi), an Afghan who knows a thing or two about explosives. Alf isn’t his real name, but rather a character from a popular sitcom in the 1980’s. Nobody knows how to pronounce his name, but they know he once ate a cat. So they refer to him as “Alf, the cat eating alien.” Christopher Walken is his over-the-top best as the TV producer Mark Heiss. He wants to create a reality program about bounty hunting with Domino as the star. The hosts for the show are Brian Austin Green and Ian Ziering of “Beverly Hills 90210” fame playing themselves. They see the program as a way to get into the spotlight again. And I can’t forget to mention Lateesha (Mo’Nique), who works at the DMV, and her twin cousins Lashandra and Lashindra.
With names like Claremont, Mosbey, or Domino, you’d think they were characters ripped from an Elmore Leonard novel. The names help define who the characters are. Claremont sounds like the name of a bail bondsman; Lateesha seems like a person who would go on “The Jerry Springer Show” and try to convince the viewing audience that there is such a race as Blacktino or Hispanese.
Domino falls in the gray area of factual versus fictional. While the movie is inspired by her story, it is not based upon it. Maybe that’s why one of the taglines for the flick reads, “Based on a true story…Sort of.” Most of the characters were real people; some of the names have been changed for dramatic effect. Perhaps it is for the best, as Tony Scott and his writer, Richard Kelly, move so far away from reality and into the bent, yellowed pages of a pulp novel. Kelly sets up the DMV-fake ID scam and Scott illustrates the effect with tongue-in-cheek violence. Watching a character get his arm shot off, images of Mr. Blonde’s handiwork in Quentin Tarantino’s first feature crossed my mind.
Speaking of Tarantino, there are similarities galore between Domino and the screenplay he penned, True Romance. Both are satirical movies about crime and show biz that Tony Scott helmed. Other things they have in common are mob involvement, participation by former TV stars (real or fictionalized), Christopher Walken, a McGuffin that drives the plot, and a large supporting cast. The only difference is Romance was a better flick; it didn’t get bogged down with superfluous camera techniques.
Even with the strange visual presentation, the performances and action are fun. Mickey Rourke continues to shine in his big Hollywood comeback. Keira Knightley, bloodied and bruised, does a complete about face from her Oscar nominated performance in Pride and Prejudice. Delroy Lindo and Christopher Walken are their usual best. The movie is not to be taken seriously as it isn’t a sentimental melodrama. And why would it be, especially when you have the bounty hunters shooting up windows and setting off explosions in a real Las Vegas casino. That isn’t drama; it’s the icing on top of Tony Scott’s carnage delight.
Score: 5/10
The DVD:
VIDEO: How does it look?
(Presented in 2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)
Everything is in the presentation…and this DVD looks incredible. The visual style may give headaches to some, but you cannot discount the rich color palette. The vivid hues and multiple exposures and washed out tints, without a speck of dirt or grain. You can’t help but be fulfilled by this eye-popping extravagance.
Score: 10/10
AUDIO: How does it sound?
(English 5.1 EX Surround and DTS ES 6.1)
The 5.1 track is fine, but this is definitely a DVD you want to watch with a DTS decoder. The DTS ES 6.1 is a feast to the ears like the anamorphic widescreen transfer pleases the eyes. The soundtrack is filled to the brim with explosions and other creative sound effects that come from all different directions. It’s almost as if you are an active participant in the action. If only you had access to a gun during the Stratosphere Hotel shootout. High-octane sound at it’s finest.
Score: 10/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: Two commentaries, two featurettes, more!!!
Making a paltry 10-plus million domestically at the box office, New Line Cinema still delivers the goods with this DVD release.
The meat and potatoes of the extras are two feature-length audio commentaries. Up first is commentary with Tony Scott and Richard Kelly. Recorded separately, each sticks to what they know. Scott talks about his visual style and the film in general; Kelly talks about the script and story. If you have ever wanted to know what it’s like to attend a pre-production meeting, the other commentary track is a compilation of meetings with Scott, Kelly, producer Zach Schiff-Abrams, and, believe it or not, Tom Waits. It is hard to be scene-specific with the editing to the sessions, but it is an interesting concept that I have never seen on a DVD release.
Considering Domino is not your ordinary movie, the featurettes aren’t your normal, simplistic EPK featurettes. I Am a Bounty Hunter: Domino Harvey’s Life is a 20-minute look at the real Domino Harvey. Interviews with Domino’s mother, Choco, and a childhood friend were used in addition to sound bites from the likes of Tony Scott, Keira Knightley, and Edgar Martinez. On-set footage with the real Domino and numerous photos of her past help illuminate the portrait of a tough, albeit unique woman.
One of the options for this featurette is to play an alternate audio track. The track is an interview Richard Kelly did with Domino. The quality is, at times, hard to listen to. I don’t believe its purpose was to surface on DVD. It was done so that Kelly could understand the woman, her background, and her motivation. A better alternative would have been to see the video that went with the audio. Subtitles could have been included when the audio was muffled. Still, with the differences in fact and fiction, to hear Domino speak was of great interest.
With optional commentary by Scott, the seven deleted scenes are worth watching. Here you get to see an adolescent Domino using the f-word multiple times in a therapy session; more Christopher Walken (which is always good); Ian Ziering berating a nymphomaniac in a RV; and an alternate version of Domino and Choco’s acid trip love scene in the dessert.
The last featurette is Bounty Hunting on Acid. This is a 10-minute piece about the unique visual style Tony Scott used during production. Some of the production crew tries to explain the trial and error process of creating “Marlboro on Acid”- an expression taken from the director’s commercials in Europe. Hand crank cameras and different colors and films stocks are used to great effect to heighten the energy.
Also accessible are teaser and theatrical trailers for Domino and other New Line Cinema releases. On the DVD-ROM you have the script-to-screen option, which includes a character map.
Score: 7.5/10
1969 – 2005
