Domino (2006, DVD)

Remember high school? Remember the jocks? Remember the nerds? Remember the hipsters? Oh yes, the hipsters. Some of them, you had to admit, were actually pretty cool. Perhaps their hypocritical obsession with Darren Aronofsky or their tendency to value their record collection by its obscurity was a little weird, but their sense of humor usually won you over. However, every group of hipsters carried with them one kid who pedantically spouted off every irrelevant fact which he knew and shopped at the thrift store every weekend for the sake of being chic... you couldn't stand him. That's okay, neither could I. Tragically, Tony Scott's Domino is the cinematic incarnation of that hipster.

I wish that I could provide a plot synopsis for this film, but that's impossible, just as it is equally impossible to extract a biography from your least favorite hipster's bullshit. There's something about ten million dollars and guns and bounty hunters and gangsters and misbehaving frat boys, but isn't that in every action movie nowadays? Domino also dabbles in subplots like the hipster toys with drugs, showcasing one pointless scene after another, and making sure to exploit every possible racial stereotype.

Even the understandable subplots don't make any sense-----one scene centers around a "Nymphomaniacs Anonymous" club, yet the term "nymphomania" is scientifically obsolete, and such clubs are usually labeled "sex addicts anonymous." The title character (Keira Knightley) and her friends travel around in a Winnebago which is labeled "Bounty Squad" while being followed by television cameras-----but why exactly would they let the winnebago travel with such a phrase? Wouldn't the criminals see the label and know who was coming, especially after seeing them on television?

Imagine that the hipster takes you on a date-----somehow, you get the feeling that he would use all the wrong cues, and play death-metal after picking you up-----so does Domino. In the film's should-be dramatic moments, hip-hop music starts playing. When the scenes should be hilarious, a melancholy soundtrack kicks in. The film tries to accentuate its clever lines, such as showing a subtitle which says "lost his toe in a prison riot" right after Domino narrates the same words-----is the unlikeliness of such a situation supposed to be clever or something?

To top everything off, the script brings in a deus ex machina which the characters would never believe and whom we can't buy into either-----he appears without any provocation, any logic, and any explanation-----how exactly did this guy get here? How does he know these things? Why would Domino's friends, who don't appear to have any belief in the supernatural, listen to him? None of this is ever explained in the film.

The only slightly redeeming characteristic of the film is its cast-----yet I say "slightly" because director Tony Scott doesn't know how to capture this, either. He attempts to create a miserable, senseless romance between Domino and her friend Choco (Edgar Ramirez), but the lack of chemistry and history between the characters makes it entirely unconvincing. At one point, Domino watches Choco undressing at the laundro-mat, but there's nothing sexy about the scene because Choco's physique is flabby. Mickey Rourke and Christopher Walken's performances are as pleasing as you'd expect from actors of their aptitude, but Scott ignores them for most of the film.

In Domino, Christopher Walken's character once remarks, "Back off. It's too psychotic." These are the perfect words for the hipster, and these are the perfect words for this schizophrenic, convoluted mess of a film.

Rating: D