Domino (2006, DVD)

Keira Knightley is a tale of two personalities, and has a film list to prove it. In between her prim and proper roles, she always throws in an off-the-wall, crazy character who lives in her own little world of weirdness. After finishing off Pride and Prejudice, her film Domino hit theaters in the United States. You can talk about fitting a lot of punch into a small character, but it isn't fully realized until you see her on screen. Her role as Domino Harvey is one that won't soon be forgotten, and it is about as intense as a female character can be on-screen. Domino is a lost girl, who after being expelled from college doesn't know which way she is going to turn. While biding her time until the next thing came along, she happened across a class teaching about how to become a bounty hunter. Thinking this might be something she could be good at, she gives it a try.

Living her life up to that point, she had never been one to follow the rules, or obey the law. Now she would have a way to live her life in the open and deal with intensely dangerous situations. Craving danger seemed to be something of an addiction to her, and this was recognized by one of the hosts of the "seminar." He himself was a bounty hunter by the name of Ed Mosbey, and though he didn't like her at first, eventually allowed Domino to join his team with one other man named Choco. The three of them were a team hunting down bail-jumpers for a bail-bondsman by the name of Claremont Williams. Williams was pretty much the Godfather to these three, and whatever he told them to do, they would go off and do. They were so good at their jobs, and Domino was such a paradox, that they even found themselves being sought after to have a television show that based itself on the hunting they were doing.

To some, it may have appeared that these three bounty hunters were at the top of the world, but that would have just been an illusion. Bounty hunting is a dangerous life, and it is only a matter of time till something goes wrong. Now the film does a great job of showing the ins and outs associated with bounty hunting. It also shows how they have to just skirt by the law, and a lot of things that they do are just barely legal. It is a daily dose of using guns to make your point, and you have to be pretty tough to be in the business. At the very beginning of the film, it mentions that the story is based on a true story, but I think that it may be a little more loose in that respect. There were a bunch of sequences that were pretty out there, so I am not quite sure which of them actually happened, or which ones were just juiced up for the story. The great part, is that the story is pretty good, and it did keep my interest in the 2nd half of the film.

Besides the story, there is something else of importance that I must mention, and that is the direction of Tony Scott. Now Mr. Scott has made a living off of explosions, and fast moving scenes like he had in Man On Fire. He does that again here, but the scenes flicker, and move around when the music starts pumping far too often. Someone with a weak stomach could get sick from all of the jostling that the camera has to go through, and I think a lot of the time it ends up detracting from the movie. There are a lot of dull moments in the first half of the film, where the camera movement becomes the only exciting thing taking place. That is a problem in my opinion, but none one that Tony Scott is going to address anytime soon. As a story this one was watchable, but with the detractions of the very slow first half of the film, and the terrible Direction, I can't go above 2 stars. Appearances by Christopher Walken and Delroy Lindo keep your interest part way through, but then they resort to 90210 characters to fill out the rest. Keeping those detractors in mind, you may enjoy the film if you are just looking for something about Bounty Hunters that has a great ending.