One haunting image remains from the crystal-meth rush that is Tony Scott’s latest film, “Domino.” Right before the end credits, we see a woman with short-cropped hair and an enigmatic expression playing across her face.
In June, that woman – Domino Harvey – was found dead in her bathtub. She died of an overdose of the painkiller fentanyl. Harvey, 35, the daughter of former model Paulene Stone and British actor Laurence Harvey, was out on bail awaiting trial on drug- trafficking charges.
Don’t let the preview trailer con you. “Domino” is too fast and furious for its own good. Written by Richard Kelly, it’s crammed with ideas (and even more actors). Some might even be decent. But as the movie mix-masters biography, social issues, pop-culture critique and a gangster tale that terminates in Vegas, it becomes harder to give Scott’s film the benefit of the doubt.
It doesn’t help that the prettified amalgam of guts, glory and muted compassion Keira Knightley portrays is hard to reconcile with the mystery vision of the upper-crust lass who became a bounty hunter.
Domino Harvey’s father died when she was very young. Her mother, renamed Sophie Wynn here and played by Jacqueline Bisset, moves Domino from a dull, toney life in England to a duller “90210” existence in L.A.
The adolescent Domino’s ennui morphs into a taste for knives, nunchucks, guns and ammo. Then she answers an ad for bail-bond work.
Meeting cute in the world of bounty hunters is a profanity-laden tussle. Yet Harvey winds up impressing legend Ed Mosbey (Mickey Rourke), to the surly chagrin of Choco (Edgar Ramirez).
The trio’s first gig together is nearly their last when they barge into a house filled with armed gang members. Who needs the cavalry or even a sawed-off shotgun when a lap dance can save the day?
The bondmen’s regular contact, Claremont Williams III (Delroy Lindo), is a man of many angles and quite a few women. And the crazed unraveling begins when one of them, Lateesha (Mo’Nique), who works at the Department of Motor Vehicles, decides to betray the wrong cocky college kid looking for fake IDs.
Mayhem ensues. Things go very awry.
So what does awry look like? Well, a lot like an Elmore Leonard opera of greed and desperation, except without the light touch.
“Domino” flashes forward, hurtles backward and even jukes sideways. The filmmakers justify their convoluted zigs and zags by starting with a bloodied Harvey sitting across from FBI psychologist Taryn Mills (Lucy Liu) telling all.
If Scott wanted to tell even some of the truth of the emotionally wounded but bold rich girl he met 10 years ago, he ditched those aspirations for a bounty hunter’s adrenaline ride. Avoiding wrestling with Domino Harvey’s drug problems was his first step toward an empty movie.
Like the film’s TV-producer character (Christopher Walken) who gives Domino and her fellas a reality show, Scott doesn’t trust his material. He has tossed everything into this boiling pot. Yet, for all the visual spice, the soundtrack pepper, it tastes off – and satisfies even less.
* 1/2 | “Domino”
R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexual content/nudity and drug use|1 hour, 45 minutes|PSEUDO-BIOPIC |Directed by Tony Scott; written by Richard Kelly; photography by Dan Mindel; starring Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramirez, Delroy Lindo, Lucy Liu, Mo’Nique, Macy Gray, Dabney Coleman, Rizwan Abbasi, Ian Zearing, Brian Austin Green, Christopher Walken, Mena Suvari, Jacqueline Bisset|Opens today at area theaters.
