Review of Domino (1973) by James S — 05 Jul 2009

You can sort of see, at one point, why this might have seemed like a good idea. A zeitgeisty script from hot property Richard Kelly encompassing a female bounty hunter, reality TV, guns, explosions and lots of shady twists.

But Domino is not good. Not good by a long shot. The non-chronological storytelling doesn't help as the pop video effects are rolled out for the flashy credits sequence. Keira Knightley is the eponymous Domino, a good girl who decided to train herself to be a bounty hunter in what seems little more than an act of teenage rebellion who then hooks up with scam artist Mickey Rourke and becomes embroiled in a take of mobsters and big black women stealing money to fund their grandchild's operation...or something.

It's terribly directed by Tony Scott, a man who can and has done so much better. the lighting is either garishly bright or murkily dark. The whole film is over crowded and has way too much going on with too many characters and Domino therefore seems almost insignificant and is not interesting enough to begin with to carry the film. Knightley is playing against type and makes a decent enough stab at it but she comes across as not really knowing what the hell she's doing in this movie and looks uncomfortable most of the time.

The twists, rather than revealing anything, just confuse and an over abundance of them towards the end makes it hard to keep up.

There is a spectacular conclusion set a top the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas but by this time you're bored with the whole thing.

Domino is a colossal mess of a movie. Incoherent, big on noise but low on brains, tacky and cheap looking and generally abysmal.