Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Okay... short version first. I hated this movie. If all you’re looking for is a simplistic “yea” or “nay,” there you go.
Let me explain. DOMINO is one of those films that looks good on paper. You’ve got Richard Kelly as a writer. You’ve got Tony Scott coming off one of his career highs. Youv’e got a large supporting cast filled with quirky, interesting actors. It’s the sort of hard-boiled fare that can be a great foundation for a wild action ride. So it goes to follow that the film’s great... right?
The film’s first big mistake, one that’s impossible to overcome, is the casting of Kiera Knightley as Domino Harvey. I’m giving up on her at this point. She’s not a good actor. She’s not a bad actor. She’s a non-actor. She brings nothing. There’s not one scene in this film where I believe her. She doesn’t look tough or dangerous, and I don’t buy her roughhousing with the big boys. There’s a scene early on where she gets Mickey Rourke’s attention by throwing a knife through his windshield that is ludicrous. The idea that his character wouldn’t get out of his car, stomp this pouty little overprivileged 82 pound bitch into a wet spot on the pavement, then drive away is absurd. There’s nothing in the film to indicate why we should believe any of this behavior from Domino, or more importantly, why we should care. Domino comes off as spoiled, sullen, abrasive, and pissed at the world for no reason. She cockteases the men in her life for fun and seems to feel that any conversation is better if you punch someone. I know the way I’m describing it makes her sound interesting. She’s not. This all comes off as hollow, phony, a pose struck by a pretty girl who never had to develop a personality, and whose only frame of reference is movies. Maybe another actress might have found something to do with the role, but Knightley comes up empty-handed in every scene. It doesn’t surprise me that the story she keeps telling on talk shows and in every interview is all about the quest to find her butt double, because that’s about the level of insight she provides to her role.
The second culprit in this particular conspiracy of catastrophe is, sadly, Richard Kelly. And, yeah, I know it’s not going to make me popular to say that. Richard’s a talented guy. He’s got a rabid fanbase. He’s part of the tight-knit group of friends like Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino who are one of the cooler power bases in the business right now. I think he’s got a strong, personal voice. Having said that, DOMINO is simply a case of trying too hard. It tries too hard to be cleverly structured. It tries too hard to be cool and badass. It tries too hard to give significance to a story that practically defines insignificance. Its biggest sin is incoherence. At heart, this is a fairly simple robbery-gone-wrong story, and all of the script’s various contortions seem designed to disguise the fact that we’ve seen this sort of thing a million times, and not much really happens. The most confounding part of it is how Kelly, who has always seemed tuned in to his own particular radio station as a writer, for some reason succumbs to doing that same tired post-Tarantino shtick that wore out its welcome about three months after PULP FICTION. We’re in BOONDOCK SAINTS territory here. The use of the two guys from BEVERLY HILLS 90210 is funny for about two minutes, but when every other shitty reality show on TV uses has-been celebrities for ironic effect, it doesn’t seem very bold. At one point, Domino says, “If you want to know what’s true and what not, fuck you.” Yeah, yeah, that’s hilarious, just like the opening title that says, “This is based on a true story... sort of.” The problem is, none of this shit is true. Sure, a few basic facts, but the main story itself, the meat of the movie, is all played as such obvious cartoon, filled with so many details that would have been in the news and common knowledge if they had happened, that it begs the question: why bother? Why use Domino Harvey as the main character if you’re going to invent the whole story? What was it about her that made her compelling enough in the first place, and why isn’t the film about that?
Y’know who deserves the most blame, though? Tony Scott. No question about it. Seriously, dude, it’s time for an intervention. We need to take his Avid away, we need to give him a script for a simple two-character one-act play, and we need to force him into a boot camp on the basics of storytelling, because he has lost his motherfucking mind.
He’s passed the point now where style strangles substance and gotten to a place where style is all that remains. He’s not even interested in substance. I honestly believe that Tony Scott made exactly the film that he set out to make. I just don’t think he had any idea what he was hoping to say with the movie. Every moment is given such bombastic overimportance that nothing matters. It’s one thing if you want to use hyperactive pyrotechnics to sell the frantic chaos of a twelve-way shootout, that’s one thing. But when you use that same exact level of visual hyperactivity to show me a little girl’s goldfish die, you devalue it. Eventually, it all just becomes numbing. The sad thing is that I don’t think Tony Scott’s grown one bit as a filmmaker since BEVERLY HILLS COP 2, and this is pretty much exactly a vapid film as that was. He still seems to prefer noise and chaos to characterization or real action. He still manages to shoot actors in a way that guarantees that even when he does get a good performance out of someone, there’s no guarantee we’ll see it. I liked MAN ON FIRE last year, but I think it was in spite of Tony Scott, not because of him. When I asked Ray Manzarek one time about his opinion of Oliver Stone’s THE DOORS, he said, “That was a white powder movie about a psychedelic band.” Great observation, and this is a movie about a mescaline high that seems to have been made by someone who’s never even had mescaline accurately described to them before. It’s frantic, but that’s hardly the same thing.
There are some things to like about the film. Mickey Rourke’s recent resurgence continues full-force, even if he’s not given anything to do. It’s nice to see Dabney Coleman show up for about three minutes. I was also very impressed with Edgar Ramirez, who plays Choco, a bounty hunter who works with Rourke and Domino. He’s a commanding screen presence, charismatic and physical, and I’ll be we see more of him in the future. There’s one very funny scene involving Mo’Nique on the JERRY SPRINGER show. There’s one great act of violence, but the scene’s marred by a music cue that’s just a little too RESERVOIR DOGS for its own good. And then there’s the opening title sequence, one of the coolest of the year. But that’s about it. That’s all I could find to hold on to in two hours of headache-inducing hysteria. DOMINO is a baffling mess, a movie that means to thrill but which ends up as one of the most depressing, empty exercises of the year.
One more review for you later today... for GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK, and then I’ve got all sorts of great stuff all weekend long. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
