‘Domino’Starring: Kiera Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar RamirezDirected by: Tony ScottStars: 2 out of 5Plot Summary: A model turned bounty hunter fights crime to push against her beauty queen image.

The world of bounty hunting is dirty and dizzy, almost to the point of nausea, with moments of pure adrenaline, but overall, is rather boring and meaningless.

Unfortunately, so is ‘Domino.’

The real problem is clear from the first moments of the film. Instead of normal credits, each actor is individually introduced with flashy screenshots of their characters. Immediately, it’s obvious that this action/suspense film verges on that of art flick. The movie uses multiple quick-cut flashes that blend colors with the scenery in hopes of showing the chaos which is a life of a bounty hunter, but unfortunately, this just makes the audience kind of queasy. While it does work for the masculine-based coffee scene, stretching it through the entire movie is at best repetitive and, at worst, destroys the frequent would-be action scenes.

Loosely based on the real life account of Domino Harvey, a model turned bounty hunter, the film is told in flashback and follows her life. The film moves from her being a young girl growing up in California and trying to escape the stereotypical ‘90210’ life to becoming a fierce bounty hunter. The plot culminates with an inside-job robbery gone wrong that involves the mafia, the FBI, casino operators and the Department of Motor Vehicles, with Domino caught in between.

The storyline was very good, and could, with the right direction, have been made into a powerful edge-of-your-seat film, yet it never really got there. This may actually lie with the faults of the characters. Keira Knightley, who may be trying to escape her feminine roles in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ seemed to take the bad-ass role of bounty hunter almost to the point of ridiculousness, and it was at times very hard to take her seriously. Christopher Walken and Lucy Liu, who were also given star billing, were on screen for a combined half hour and were clearly there as crowd drawers alone.

But the movie wasn’t a total disaster. Mickey Rourke, although underplayed, shined as bounty hunter Ed Moseby, based on real-life hunter Zeke Unger, and Delroy Lindo created an excellent performance as bail bondsman Claremont Williams III, based on Celes King III, who in reality was Domino’s boss.

And while the movie was annoyingly flashy and loud, the soundtrack to match these artsy scenes was perfect. It was the right blend of remixed hip-hop and trance techno combined with the use of Three Dog Night’s ‘Momma Told Me Not to Come’ during the climatic final shootout scene to give the movie just what it needed to be completely worthless.

‘Domino’ had the potential to be a great action movie, but ended up becoming only so-so with all the added and unnecessary creative garbage. The film is a clear-cut example of when simplicity can be much more effective than anything else.

Published on October 13, 2005 at 12:00 pm