Hey folks, Harry here... We've had a couple of very positive film reviews for DOMINO - which usually results in the prerequisite cries of "plants!" from the peanut gallery. However, I'm telling you right now - there will be two highly polarized takes on DOMINO. Positive and negative. It won't churn out reviews that you'll find folks in the middle. This is very intense, unhinged and insane material. If you walk in thinking DONNIE DARKO - you're at the totally wrong spectrum of the world. This is as brilliantly random by design as that film (script) but is far more manic and extreme. Think of it as MIDNIGHT RUN meets NATURAL BORN KILLERS. Yeah, like I said... insane, but in a way I find wonderful and that two reviewers have found wonderful. Now, these two had a very different take on it, and well... that'll happen. Doesn't mean it's the end of the world, but it does tell ya it is possible to out and out hate this movie. Now when ya see it, ya just got to see which type of DOMINO watcher you are... the type that grooves to every last beat of it.... or the one that shoves fingers in their ears and starts hating on it. And that we won't know till we see it. Which, by the way, is a long time from now - and the film might see nips and tucks between now and then... but that Kiera Knightley lap dance scene sounds like the sort of thing that'll keep an audience's attention at attention. Here ya go - watch out for spoilers...
Hey Harry, I sent this to Moriarty after that first Domino review got posted, but I don't see any sign of it on the site. I thought I'd send it to you too since there still hasn't been a review showing the other end of the opinion.
Hey Moriarty,
I attended this screening of Domino and I thought you might like to hear what the other end of the opinion spectrum had to say. You see, I feel that the review you have currently posted does not accurately describe the feeling of the audience after the screening (I could hear many, and I mean MANY people leaving the theatre talking about how they didn’t like the movie). Meanwhile, I also have a conspiracy theory involving the focus group to propose.
First of all, let me say that I am a GIANT fan of Donnie Darko…I love Richard Kelly for directing a movie that has sparked hundreds of conversations in my group of friends (I’m a 17-year-old so the philosophical conversations among my friends used to come in rare form). Let me also say, that I did not walk into this movie knowing that Richard Kelly wrote it. With that said…let me now say: I did not enjoy this movie at all.
I won’t give away too many plot points…who knows how much will stay in, but I will comment on the technical aspects (however rough they were…it cannot be denied that many styles will still stay in the final print). The camerawork was shaky and constantly over-exposed (with hot spots everywhere) and the editing was jumpy making quick cuts all over the place. Now I could see how this might be a great idea: shaky, blurry, hot….gives you kind of an idea of how it felt to be in the scenes with these characters…living a physically and mentally demanding life where unexpected things happened all the time. Only problem is that this messy look was so consistent throughout the movie that the film became visually boring to watch. It was the same thing everywhere….and I started to lose interest in the visuals about an hour into the movie. Again, this may have something to do with color correcting and balancing that hasn’t been done yet (perhaps making some of these scenes have a different color temperature or have “cooler” properties). The jump cuts were also so numerous that I started to ignore them…so that when a jump cut that actually had some symbolic importance in the story occurred: it passed me by without impact. The movie was just unpleasant to watch from a visual standpoint because of this “style”.
I think the major problem I experienced in this movie was that I couldn’t sympathize with the main character. You cannot ask me to love a character who finds joy in beating other people up (okay…she never killed anyone on purpose…so what?)…I’m fine with watching ass-kicking fests in movies and rooting on the person giving ass-kickings…but when they find themselves in trouble for doing this ass-kicking…don’t ask me to sympathize. That was the problem: it felt like I was being spoon fed “we want you to sympathize with domino because she really is a good person at heart”….bullshit. The relationships between Domino and her two partners Ed and Choco (referred to as Coco during many scenes for comedic purposes) are well done for the most part…sans a really laughable
SPOILER ALERT sex/love scene between Choco and Domino when they get stranded in the desert….seriously…I wanted to slap my head from the stupidity of this scene. REALLY CHEESY AND UNREALISTIC.
END SPOILER
Despite my contempt towards this movie for wasting around 2 hours of my life…there were some (and by some, I mean VERY LITTLE)….rewarding factors. Christopher Walken is funny as shit…he deserved more screen time since he was one of the most entertaining characters in the movie. There was also a HILARIOUS scene on Jerry Springer. I won’t give away the details…but let me just say it has to do with mixed race grandmothers and a new, ridiculous, proposal.
I’d write about more details…but I don’t find the same joy in writing this review as I did in writing my Serenity review (firefly newbie review if you remember?)…it was such a dull movie that I don’t have any interest in continuing. I will make 2 more quick notes and introduce my theory though before I leave. Note one: the appearance of 2 actors from a popular tv show is a funny segment for a while…but they eventually become as annoying and useless as Jar Jar Binks in Episode I. Note two: the ending is a horrible piece of racist shit that I hope to god they reshoot. I won’t give out details…but let me just say it is not helping a certain stereotype that has been prominent since 9/11.
And now for my conspiracy theory. Standing outside this movie, I was chosen to be in the focus group for a discussion after the movie. Everything was going according to plan when I was seated…the nice woman took my name and age and said she’ll see me after the show. Afterward, she came around to all the people selected for the focus group and asked to see how we rated the movie on our comment card. I rated it poor (lowest score) and she gave me this fake smile (looked like she suddenly didn’t like me too much anymore), and came back a few minutes later saying “I’m sorry, but we won’t be needing you for the focus group anymore”. First: I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to point out the many problems I found with the movie. Second: I was no longer going to get a free movie ticket that she promised me for being in the focus group…so I was mad. I didn’t think much of it till I read the review you posted on your site. The reviewer said that the focus group consisted of mostly good and ok reviews. This made me wonder: was the focus group constructing a good review by only picking people who gave it a good score? I might be completely wrong…I don’t know anything about the way focus groups conduct their studies. All I know is that this focus group was not an accurate account of the way the audience was feeling after seeing this movie.
Oh yeah…one more semi-rewarding factor of the movie (and I say semi…because this scene was absolutely stupid):
SPOILER ALERT
Kiera Knightley gives a guy a lap dance in nothing but bra and panties.
Hot – Yes. Useful to the story – Almost, but not really.
END SPOILER
If you still insist on seeing this movie, I suggest drinking a highly caffeinated drink…cause I almost fell asleep. So god speed.
MAGICDGK
And here's the other negative look at the film...
Hey Harry,
I've written for you before for Blade III and I loaded it and predicted that it was beyond repair... I was right.
I also attended the showing of Domino at the Bridge in L.A. last week with a friend. I don't know why you are getting positive reviews, but oh well. DOMINO had many flaws... and the film cannot be salvaged. It can't be edited down, re-shot, recast, or anything to make it better.
Tony Scott is a good director. Spy Game was so good that it has become my favorite spy movie. But, even good directors can make bad movies with bad material at hand.
The movie starts out promising. A mexican standoff between the bounty hunters and a woman who has millions stashed inside her fridge. Then she's forced to open it with the combination written on the chopped off arm of her son. So... we are on a journey to find out how we got here, and we asume that some plot twist will reveal that everything is not really what it seems, right?
Obviously the first moment something went wrong was when they didn't shoot the dog dead, and insead made an escape route for him. Too p.c.
But that's just minor. The plot is weak, makes no sense and Tony Scott makes a bunch of directing tricts so as to distract us from the fact that the whole story blows. It is a lack of confidence on the material when you have to make that many shaky cams, extreme close ups at odd times. The characters are weak and underdeveloped. Kiera's character is a whiny kid who obviously must be super human, since she falls in an elevator along with some people like 60 stories down and it smashes so hard people at the lobby are killed... but only she survives with some minor scratches. There's this angle throughout the film that her character doesn't let herself care for anyone, except for her goldfish. When the goldfish later dies she cries so hard for it that it was actually funny. Full throated belly cries whith the goldfish in her hand.
There was this whole subplot with the actress Mo'Nique that was absurd. She is at Jerry springer promoting names for races, like blacktino, hispanese, etc. Sure it was funny, but what kind of movie are you making? If this is a hip hop movie then yeah, it belongs here. But it's a bounty hunting movie and the scene feels odd. Plus, the scene has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, so what the hell was it there for? It also made Mo'Nique's character seem bipolar, since she's doing things for no reason.
There is a moment when Kiera realizes the clusterfuck that has occurred, and that some hostages they delivered got killed accidentaly. She knows that the only way to get out of trouble is to recoup the money and bargain for their lives with it. But the money has been taken away by some driver who they don't know at all. Cut to, the bounty hunters apprehending the driver. HOW THE HELL DID WE GET HERE? How did they know how to find him? Scott hopes we don't notice all these plot holes by quick editing.
Several times throughout the movie Scott misdirects you by showing you an event (people getting shot), then rewinding and showing you that it didn't really happen. A good filmaker doesn't have to do this, he will show you an event and later you realize that there was a missing puzzle piece that changes the meaning. Remember the sixth sense? First you see Bruce Willis as if he's just spoken to someone, having communication probles with his wife, only to find out at the end that he's dead. That's how you do it, not by rewinding the tape and showing you that the event never really happened. Copout.
Toward the end, we finally get the explanation as to how everything got jacked up, yet there is no plot twist, no surprise, no mastermind, nothing. Everything is exactly as things were shown at the beginning.
Other movies have done this well, like the Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, and many others. But here, it's just a bunch of guys in a bad situation... and that's it. Kiera tells her mother at the end that she loves here. I get it, character ark. But there was never any conflict between her mother and her, so there is nothing at stake. We don't care that she "grows". The only thing I really liked was Mickey Rourke, he is just as good as in Sin City.
Avoid this movie, please. You deserve better.
Call me Dvessel.
