Model Domino Harvey has ditched the bustier and resigned the runway act. Instead of parading around in Gucci she's wearing camo and pumping bullets into notorious fugitives.
"Domino," starring Keira Knightley ("Pirates of the Caribbean") and Mickey Rourke, is based on a true story about actor Lawrence Harvey's daughter, who left her career as a model to hunt down wanted criminals instead.
Domino is the world's greatest bounty hunter and there's no way she'll let anyone forget it. In fact, the tagline for the entire movie reads, "My name is Domino Harvey, I am a bounty hunter."
Clever girl.
The premise of the movie seems promising. Unfortunately, the film's overwhelming choppiness attacks the audience with a plight of ADHD. Even a person with a reasonable attention span will have a hard time following the plot.
The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks and memories. FBI agent Taryn Miles (Lucy Lui of "Kill Bill") questions Domino about past acts.
Domino's story begins in England, where she picks up her accent and an affinity for weapons. Her father dies and her mother moves them to Beverly Hills after becoming obsessed with "Beverly Hills 90210." Domino has a hard time fitting in anywhere because she beats the crap out of anyone she meets.
As fate would have it, she sees an ad for a bounty hunter seminar. That's where the action starts. She meets up with Ed Mosbey (Rourke) and his sidekick Choco (Edgar Ramirez of Oscar-nominated "Punto y raya") and they form a team.
On her first raid, she gives a gangster a lap dance to get information, and things just keep getting better. The scene cuts to her receiving the award for "Bounty Hunter of the Year."
This is where the story gets strange. It moves in about 10 different directions and 20 more irrelevant characters are introduced that only confuse the audience. The team is followed as part of a reality show and accompanying them are two celebrity bounty hunters. They happen to be Bryan Austin Greene and Ian Ziering straight from the valley, looking to jump-start their careers.
Nothing makes sense from this point on. The story becomes incredibly hard to follow with the introduction of new characters and subplots. It turns into a movie about mob hits, welfare parents and mescaline. There are some memorable scenes but they are over before the audience can fully appreciate them.
While the movie is seriously lacking a coherent plot, it does have some redeeming qualities. Every actor and actress is right on-point and there are noteworthy performances. Mo'Nique Imes-Jackson ("Shadowboxer," "Soul Plane") excels as Lateesha Rodriguez, the most fashionable employee at the DMV. Not only is she all done-up all the time, her moral dilemma is the catalyst for all of the action in the movie.
When the plot starts to come apart, there are still incredible visual effects for this movie to fall back on. In a style similar to "Man on Fire," Tony Scott uses intense lighting, quick camera cuts and different colors and layers to keep the audience's eyes on the screen.
It's obvious that Scott is trying to cover up the convoluted plot with dazzling effects and choppy scenes.
Scott's overcompensation becomes excruciatingly obvious an hour into the movie. The movie should be over but it just keeps going. Although there are some aspects that succeed, a movie with a plot as erratic as seizure movements is ultimately going to fail.
