- 2,760
Sigh. If Keira Knightley wasn't so inexplicably attractive, I never would have seen this movie in the first place. From the first moment I watched the trailer and heard her say, "My name is Domino Harvey. I am...a bounty huntah," I knew she was the wrong actress for the role of the real, yet recently deceased Domino Harvey. I understand she is trying to break out of her somewhat solidified typecast status as, well, a tomboyishly hot British babe who looks good in Victorian garb. I loved her in Pirates of the Caribbean, and found her a delight in Love, Actually. But when it comes to playing a badass bounty hunter who's "not afraid to die," I'm afraid she just hasn't got the chops. She's not up for the job, and it's sad because director Tony Scott has talent (though sometimes he chooses to try new things instead of using what works for him), and I've always upheld that Mickey Rourke is the most underappreciated actor in Hollywood. I really can't understand how this movie turned out so bad, but it was definitely a failure. It thinks it's cooler than it actually is, and Scott has wasted his talent here. Instead of the slick Scott style we saw in Enemy of the State, we have a director who appears here to be showing us nothing new, aside from his ability to overexpose a movie and make the print itself look like it's been dipped in bacon fat and then dragged across the Nevada desert for about 100 miles. THink Traffic or Three Kings, and you have a rough idea of the visual style of the movie.
While this has worked in the past, Scott ruins it here by using so much slow motion, jump cuts, flashbacks, and rapid-fire successions of images that it's mentally exhausting just to get your brain to register what the hell you're looking at, let alone try and follow the double- or triple-cross plot at the same time. Watching the finale itself, a shootout between a casino owner and his thugs, a mafia boss and his thugs, and the FBI, is like staring directly into a strobe light for fifteen minutes.
The movie is "sort of" based on the life of Domino Harvey, a real bounty hunter who was recently found dead of an accidental drug overdose. She was born into a proveledged life, the daughter of British actor Laurence Harvey (of the original Manchurian Candidate fame). For some reason, the explanation for which we're never really given in the film, Domino rebelled against this lifestyle and went off to join a team of bounty hunters in the US. This is all dealt with pretty much in the first fifteen minutes of the film, and feels rushed over in order to get to the violence. Yes, there's violence here, and guns, and swearing, and nudity (yes, Keira's boobs make an appearance, but please don't go pay $10 to see them, wait until it comes out for rent). But because of the pretentious and unnecessary way the movie is shot, this is all for naught. The story gets shoved aside in exchange for visual style, which doesn't really work.
About halfway into the movie, Christopher Walken shows up, playing a reality TV producer who wants to follow Domino and her team around with video cameras and make a show of it. His assistant is Mena Suvari, and he has for some reason chosen Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green (from Beverly Hills, 90210, who both play themselves) to host the show. It feels like a bunch of name actors crammed into a movie that sucks in order to bring in audiences.
As I said, Mickey Rourke is the only good thing about this movie.
While this has worked in the past, Scott ruins it here by using so much slow motion, jump cuts, flashbacks, and rapid-fire successions of images that it's mentally exhausting just to get your brain to register what the hell you're looking at, let alone try and follow the double- or triple-cross plot at the same time. Watching the finale itself, a shootout between a casino owner and his thugs, a mafia boss and his thugs, and the FBI, is like staring directly into a strobe light for fifteen minutes.
The movie is "sort of" based on the life of Domino Harvey, a real bounty hunter who was recently found dead of an accidental drug overdose. She was born into a proveledged life, the daughter of British actor Laurence Harvey (of the original Manchurian Candidate fame). For some reason, the explanation for which we're never really given in the film, Domino rebelled against this lifestyle and went off to join a team of bounty hunters in the US. This is all dealt with pretty much in the first fifteen minutes of the film, and feels rushed over in order to get to the violence. Yes, there's violence here, and guns, and swearing, and nudity (yes, Keira's boobs make an appearance, but please don't go pay $10 to see them, wait until it comes out for rent). But because of the pretentious and unnecessary way the movie is shot, this is all for naught. The story gets shoved aside in exchange for visual style, which doesn't really work.
About halfway into the movie, Christopher Walken shows up, playing a reality TV producer who wants to follow Domino and her team around with video cameras and make a show of it. His assistant is Mena Suvari, and he has for some reason chosen Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green (from Beverly Hills, 90210, who both play themselves) to host the show. It feels like a bunch of name actors crammed into a movie that sucks in order to bring in audiences.
As I said, Mickey Rourke is the only good thing about this movie.
