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Domino In modern Hollywood, with all of the talent, research, test audience viewings, bureaucratic red tape and spineless corporate executives who don't want to take a risk on anything close to daring or chancy, it is shocking a movie as bad as Domino could be made. In this based-on-a-true-but-mostly-baloney tale, Keira Knightley stars as Domino Harvey - former model and daughter of a famous actor who becomes a bounty hunter in Los Angeles when she has troubles fitting in anywhere else. She has been captured by the FBI after a huge bank heist, and the interrogator (Lucy Lui) is questioning Domino about her role, so she can capture all of the bounty hunter's suspected conspirators. Of course, this leads to a massive flashback where Domino tells us her life story and how she has gotten to this point. Was Domino involved in the bank heist? Is her life all that interesting to merit an entire movie? Domino proves director Tony Scott wishes he was Martin Scorsese, but he has a long, long way to go. Scott pays too much time with camera tricks and "style" to give Domino any substance and story. We get sliding text, harsh colors, shaky camera work, echoing speech for no reason, and musical attempts at irony all in the name of being cool, but it just stinks. Scott fails to make us intrigued about Domino. We don't have to find her sympathetic, or even like her, but we have to feel something to make us want to watch all the way to the end. Writer Richard Kelly doesn't help as he presents a convoluted story that isn't very compelling. He makes fun of reality TV and Beverly Hills 90210 several years after anyone would care to laugh, doesn't create any memorable dialogue, and makes a half-hearted stab at working in a love story. Who's doing what to whom and what is the point of the bank heist? You get the general gist of it, but there seems to be some subtext or twist and turns that aren't explained very well, so the audience is forced to just give up and watch stuff go boom, which doesn't help our young star in her first big leading role. I understand why Knightley would be drawn to a movie where she gets to play the tough gal, but her performance is all attitude. Domino is an angry young girl for no good reason, so Knightley is stuck stomping through every scene with the subtlety of an elephant. She is forced to yell most of her lines, except for her scenes with Lui, which are supposed to be filled with some sort of taboo sexual tension, but are just full of bull. Domino is a horrid piece of junk. I should have went home when Domino said, "I knew we should have stopped when my goldfish died." The movie died long before then. 0 Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2005 - WaffleMovies.com
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