Domino

Domino Information

Domino is a 2005 American action film directed by Tony Scott and written by Richard Kelly. Inspired by Domino Harvey, the English daughter of stage and screen actor Laurence Harvey, who became a Los Angeles bounty hunter, the plot flashes back as Domino (Keira Knightley), actress turned bounty hunter, narrates how a $10M robbery came about 36 hours before. Supporting roles are Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramirez, Delroy Lindo and Mo'Nique. The film is dedicated to Harvey, who died at only 35 years of age from an accidental overdose of fentanyl on June 27, 2005, before the film was released.

Plot details

Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley), a bounty hunter, has been arrested by the FBI, which is investigating the theft of $10 million from an armored truck 36 hours prior. Domino is interviewed by criminal psychologist Taryn Mills (Lucy Liu) and agrees to tell her everything she knows about the case.

Domino, a former model living in Los Angeles becomes a bounty hunter when, after being kicked out of college, she notices a newspaper advertisement for a bounty hunter training seminar. Her colleagues are Ed Moseby (Mickey Rourke), Choco (Edgar Ramirez) and their Afghan driver Alf (Riz Abbasi). They are employed by Claremont Williams III (Delroy Lindo), a bail bondsman who also runs an armored car business. Claremont's mistress, Lateesha Rodriguez (Mo'Nique), works for the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Her granddaughter Mica is suffering from a blood disease and needs an operation urgently. The operation Mica needs costs $300,000 which Lateesha does not have. Claremont comes up with a plan to get the money by setting up the robbery of $10 million from Drake Bishop (Dabney Coleman), the billionaire owner of the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and a client of Claremont's armored car business. His bounty hunters would then return the stolen money and collect a $300,000 finder's fee from Bishop.

Lateesha has been running a counterfeit driver's license racket at the DMV. A teenager named Frances arrives at the DMV and asks Lateesha for fake driver's licenses for himself, his brother, and two of their friends. The FBI are tipped about Lateesha's counterfeit driver's license racket. They threaten to send her to jail unless she gives them information about Frances, whom they have been surveilling. Lateesha throws them off the trail by stating that Frances, his brother and his two friends are going to commit the robbery, when in reality she and Claremont are planning on doing it themselves.

Lateesha successfully carries out the robbery with the help of three of her co-workers. Claremont then finds out that Frances and his brother, who Lateesha framed for the robbery, are the sons of mafia boss Anthony Cigliutti. He phones Lateesha and tells her to abort the plan, leaving the money with getaway driver Locus Fender who takes the money to his mother's trailer home. Claremont has the bounty hunters apprehend Frances, his brother and his two friends and then tells them to deliver them to men working for Drake Bishop. Claremont next tells them to retrieve the money from Locus Fender and to deliver it to Bishop at the Stratosphere Casino. Following a shootout with Locus's mother the money is retrieved. Cigliutti is told about his sons' arrest and is led to believe that Bishop has had his sons killed. In reality Bishop's men released them on finding that they did not know anything about the robbery. Believing his sons dead, Cigliutti is now out for revenge and, together with his crew, heads for the Stratosphere. In Las Vegas, Domino takes $300,000 of Bishop's money and gives it to Lateesha for Mica's operation.

At the Stratosphere, the bounty hunters meet with Bishop, who has an armed crew with him. Domino and Bishop discuss the money and what should happen next. However, unknown to the bounty hunters, Alf has stolen the money and filled the sacks with plastic explosives. He then reveals that he has the remote detonator taped to his hand, and has already shipped the money to aid freedom fighters in Afghanistan. Shortly after this revelation Anthony Cigliutti turns up with his crew. Though Bishop denies he has had Cigliutti's sons killed, Cigliutti shoots Bishop. In the ensuing gunfight Choco and Ed are severely wounded, but manage to make it into the elevator with the unwounded Domino. Alf waits as long as he can before detonating the explosives, blowing up the top of the Stratosphere, and Domino is the only survivor from the ensuing carnage.

After having told Taryn Mills everything, Domino is released by the FBI. Mills advises Domino to retire from bounty hunting. The film concludes with the money in boxes being delivered to Afghanistan and opened by celebrating children in the streets, Mica getting her operation, and Domino sharing a moment with her mother by the poolside. During the last moments Domino narrates, "I saved her ... And when she is older, a woman named Domino will tell her that there is only one conclusion to every story ... We all fall down."

Cast

Keira Knightley as Domino Harvey. Tony Scott thought of Knightley for the role after seeing her in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Mickey Rourke as Ed Moseby. Rourke initially turned down the film, describing the part of bounty hunter Ed Moseby as "one dimensional". He agreed to do the film when Tony Scott had the role rewritten.
Edgar Ramirez as Choco
Riz Abbasi as Alf
Delroy Lindo as Claremont Williams III
Mo'Nique as Lateesha Rodriguez
Dabney Coleman as Drake Bishop
Lucy Liu as Taryn Mills
Macy Gray as Lashandra Davis
Jacqueline Bisset as Sophie Wynn, Domino's mother
Christopher Walken as Mark Heiss
Mena Suvari as Kimmie
Brian Austin Green as himself
Ian Ziering as himself
Tom Waits as the Wanderer
Jerry Springer as himself
Stanley Kamel as Anthony Cigliutti, the Mafia Boss
Kel O'Neill as Frances
Peter Jacobson as Burke Beckett
Dale Dickey as Edna Fender
Lew Temple as Locus Fender
Fred Koehler as Chuckie
Charles Paraventi as Howie Stein
T.K. Carter as Lester Kincaid
Ashley Monique Clark as Kee Kee Rodriguez
Joseph Nunez as Raul Chavez
Tabitha Brownstone as an eight year old Domino
Adam Clark as agent Eric Cosgrove
Donna Scott as agent Dina Wilson.

Development

In 1994 director Tony Scott was sent an article from the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday by his business manager Neville Shulman. The article, written by Sacha Gervasi and titled My gun for hire: Why a movie star's rebel daughter turned into a bounty hunter, was about an English woman named Domino Harvey who was working as a bounty hunter, apprehending fugitives who had skipped bail for the Celes King Bail Bond agency in South Central Los Angeles. While Harvey was one of the few female bounty hunters, what caught the attention of Shulman and Scott was that she was the daughter of the late actor Laurence Harvey.

Tony Scott tracked Domino to Beverly Hills, where she was living at the time with her mother Paulene Stone and Stone's then husband Peter Morton. He invited Domino to his office, where he proposed a film of her life. Domino agreed and sold Scott the film rights. According to the Los Angeles Times, Harvey was paid $360,000 for the rights. Tony Scott interviewed Harvey about her life and her work bounty hunting. Scott also met and interviewed Ed Martinez and Choco, who were Domino's bounty hunting colleagues. She took him to meet Celes King III, the bail bondsman they worked for.

20th Century Fox, which had a first refusal deal on the project, turned it down and in the end the film was financed by New Line Cinema.

Steve Barancik wrote the first draft of the screenplay, in 1997 which Scott rejected. A second script was written by Roger Avary, but was also rejected by Scott. Scott described the two rejected screenplays as conventional biopics of Domino Harvey's life, which was not what he had in mind. Finally, Richard Kelly was asked to write the screenplay after Scott read his script for Southland Tales. Kelly was sent transcripts of Domino Harvey's interviews with Tony Scott, but he did not read the scripts that Scott had rejected. In discussing the finished product, Kelly commented that "...Domino might be one of the most subversive films released by a major studio since Fight Club".

Release

The release date of the film was announced and delayed several times. The original release date was August 19, 2005. On May 22, 2005, the release date was changed to November 4, 2005. On June 28, 2005, a day after Harvey's death, the release date was changed to November 23, 2005. On July 11, 2005, it was moved to October 14, 2005, which was the date the film was released on. The film had its premiere on October 11, 2005 in Los Angeles.

The film was released on October 14, 2005 in 2223 theaters across America and grossed $4,670,120 on its opening weekend. The film stayed in release for four weeks and ended up with a gross of $10,169,202. In other territories, the film grossed $12,775,300 which, added to the domestic gross, gave the film a total worldwide gross of $22,944,502. This was an overall loss compared to the film's estimated $50,000,000 budget.

Reception

Domino received mostly negative reviews. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 19%, based on 151 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. At the website Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received a rating average of 36, based on 36 reviews, which it ranks as "generally unfavorable". Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly gave Domino a 'D' grade, describing it as "trash shot to look like art imitating trash". Gleiberman criticised the plot as "so dense with ersatz Elmore Leonard convolutions that it manages to stay three steps ahead of the audience and four steps behind common sense". Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times also criticised the story, saying that the film was "so over-plotted that it's borderline incomprehensible". A more positive review came from Jeff Otto at IGN who praised the film for originality and also praised the acting. Otto stated that "the final result is a bit of a mess, but it's one hell of an entertaining mess". The film was among Tony Scott's favourites of his own films.

Home media

The film was released on DVD on February 21, 2006. The DVD contained several extra features including an audio commentary with Tony Scott and Richard Kelly, deleted scenes from the film, featurettes on Domino Harvey and the visual style of the film, the teaser trailer and the theatrical trailer. While the film was released in its original widescreen format in all DVD regions, the film was also released in a fullscreen format on Region 1. The film was released on Blu-ray on January 20, 2009.