Domino (2005)

A recounting of Domino Harvey's life story. The daughter of actor Laurence Harvey turned away from her career as a Ford model to become a bounty hunter.

Director:

Tony Scott

Writers:

Richard Kelly (screenplay), Richard Kelly (story)

Stars:

Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramírez

2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Keira Knightley	...	Domino Harvey
Mickey Rourke	...	Ed Moseby
Edgar Ramírez	...	Choco (as Edgar Ramirez)
Delroy Lindo	...	Claremont Williams
Mo'Nique	...	Lateesha Rodriguez
Mena Suvari	...	Kimmie
Macy Gray	...	Lashandra Davis
Jacqueline Bisset	...	Sophie Wynn
Dabney Coleman	...	Drake Bishop
Brian Austin Green	...	Brian Austin Green
Ian Ziering	...	Ian Ziering
Stanley Kamel	...	Anthony Cigliutti
Peter Jacobson	...	Burke Beckett
T.K. Carter	...	Lester Kincaid
Kel O'Neill	...	Frances

Storyline

The daughter of an actor father and a social-climber mother, Domino Harvey, bored with her life, decides to join the team of Ed Moseby and becomes a bounty hunter. But she gets in trouble when the Mafia's money is stolen from an armored truck, while Moseby and his crew are participating in a reality show produced by Mark Heiss. The situation gets out of control when the sons of a rival mobster are kidnapped while the FBI is monitoring two gangs of mobsters.

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Plot Keywords:

female bounty hunter | female nudity | bounty hunter | fbi | model | 

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Taglines:

Heads You Live... Tails You Die.

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Genres:

Action | Biography | Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexual content/nudity and drug use

Details

Country:

France USA UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 October 2005 (USA)

Also Known As:

Домино

Filming Locations:

Alexandria Hotel - 501 S. Spring Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,670,120, 16 October 2005, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$10,169,202, 6 December 2005

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$20,405,441, 18 June 2006

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Line Cinema, Scott Free Productions, Davis-Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

127 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Tony Scott claimed that the frenetic filming and editing style of the picture is reflective of the high usage of cocaine amongst real bounty hunters he consulted while researching the film.

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Goofs

At Laurence Harvey's funeral, Domino is holding and smelling a rose. In the next few frames the stem of the rose she's holding is actually a tulip stem and leaves. Then we cut back to Domino throwing a rose onto her father's casket.

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Quotes

Domino Harvey: [V.O] When I was a little girl my father told me that if you weren't careful you could lose everything you've ever earned in life in a split second. You have to know when to cash out.

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Crazy Credits

The film opens with a title card reading "This is based on a true story" followed by one that reads "Sort of."

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Connections

Featured in Bounty Hunting on Acid: Tony Scott's Visual Style (2006)

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Soundtracks

Jesus Gonna Be Here
Written by Tom Waits
Performed by Tom Waits
Courtesy of The Island Def Jam Music Group
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

Wild narrative meets Wicked stylization

Domino opens up with the title character being interrogated, and through the voice-over narration she informs us, "This is the part where I tell them to go to hell – that I'm not talking until my lawyer arrives." And two seconds later she tells the interrogating officer, "I'll tell you everything." This sets the tone and rhythm for the rest of the movie, and lets us know the narrative isn't afraid to contradict itself. Soon we jump to the setup of the film's ending, then we jump back to the beginning of Domino's story, and then we jump to an important plot point that won't come into play until twenty minutes later. Literalists and traditionalists, please stop watching the film immediately. So in the spirit of the film, I'll come back to this point in a little bit and probably say something completely different. If you're with me, you'll understand. If not, get lost.

Regarding the style: I never thought I'd see the day when I'd like a movie with a music video meets reality TV vibe. I've hated – no, scratch that – I've loathed films that would merely flirt with the idea. I've stopped caring entirely about plot/characters and any redeeming values because the style has driven me up a wall in those other films. Here, though, Tony Scott doesn't think twice about embracing it, and at first it didn't sit well with me as I remembered all the failures that came before Domino. But then something happened . . .

Mel Brooks, in describing his overboard ideas of comedy, once said, "What's the point of going all the way to the bell without ringing it? Let's ring the damn bell." Maybe my problem with this MTV/Reality-series style of film-making has been the fact that every other filmmaker was content to go part way – to just flirt with the idea – but here at last Tony Scott rings the bell.

And holy crap! When I started to listen it actually sounds good! Real freakin' good.

Perhaps another reason why it works in this film is because Tony Scott understands the potency behind each of a film's individual elements. And he's not content to let the music, editing, on screen performance, Kiera Knightley's voice-over, and on-screen text tell their small part of the story and work together as a whole; Domino uses each of its given elements to simultaneously tell their own version of the tale from beginning to end in its entirety. It's a full-on frontal assault of the senses and gives the viewer the feeling five people are telling their own interpretation of the exact same story at the exact same time – talking over one another, contradicting one another, interrupting each other, going back and correcting themselves.

You've heard of Howard Hawk's overlapping dialogue? Tony Scott gives you overlapping cinematic narrative elements. The genius and the magic is that Tony Scott masterfully maintains comprehensible order through all this narrative chaos, and somehow Tony Scott makes it all work.

Also, the film's stylization has another point behind – it serves as a reflection (dare I say an alternate, yet effective, means of character development?) for Domino Harvey, her attitude, and the world she lives in. This movie is not content simply telling us about the world, it's a part of that world too, and for two hours it wants to bring us there. Or to draw an analogy – you can listen to a book being read in a flat monotone or you can listen to it being read with different voices for each character, and the narrator gets up and acts out the story too. Domino goes that extra distance.

The plot? I'd be wasting my time if I tried. Domino Harvey is a former model turned bounty hunter. And the movie, itself, is an action-adventure thriller. You don't need to know anything more. The point of Domino isn't on the contents of the plot, the point of Domino resides in the style in which that plot is told (and it is told very effectively). Or in other words, a summarization is nearly pointless. If you need to "get" the plot, you're not going to "get" Domino at all.

Domino is a style, an attitude, a perspective. It's a film willing to tell its audience to either come along for the ride or get lost. Based on a true story? Kiera's voice over says it, "If you want to know what *really* happened . . . get lost!" (note: stated with significantly harsher language that IMDb doesn't want to accept in a review, but you get the idea.)