Ray Pride

Call it "Girl on Fire." Determined to prove she's not just another pretty set of hipbones, Keira Knightley is game and glittering at the center of Tony Scott's "Domino," where the brother of Sir Ridley is again out to prove he's Papi Pendejo but also at least the Baron of ADD or Duke of Asperger's. This vastly enjoyable but painfully hyper entertainment is a mescaline-esque maelstrom, co-written by "Donnie Darko"'s Richard Kelly, shotgunned by a "Goodfellas"-style voiceover. "Domino" is the turbocharged life story of Domino Harvey (whom Scott knew for fifteen years), daughter of the actor Laurence Harvey (star of "The Manchurian Candidate), a rebellious Ford model turned bounty hunter whose exploits are eventually tracked, in this telling, by a WB reality show hosted by a couple of "Beverly Hills 90210" burnouts. The real Domino died after the film was finished; Scott is also reticent with the character's reported drug use and bisexuality, focusing more on ways to light the feathering peach-fuzz along Knightley's spare jaw line. Feral, cutting shadow and smoke with cheekbones and emphatic lip gloss but also butt crack and lilac lacies, the sometimes-naked Knightley is not tomboyish so much as she is very skinny as she wreaks chopsocky, choppy-and-overlapping edited havoc through a 1990s LA that seems a suburb of Mexico City. It's not girlie aggro, it's gonzo meanness and the actress is up to whatever Scott flings her way. Or, in one memorable line, "Domino, give those goddam nunchucks a rest already." The end credits begin with something precious as each of the actors are recalled, but the last two shots blur reality and invention in a startlingly explosive fashion. With Mickey Rourke and Edgar Ramirez as her crew, Lucy Liu as her interrogator, Christopher Walken, Mena Suvari and Jacqueline Bisset. Tom Waits also stumbles in out of the desert as an unlikely Kurtzian seer.

"Domino" opens Friday.

(2005-10-11)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
For those who love their work, I recommend it heartily
(2005-10-04)

Bruised
David Cronenberg makes the kind of smart movies that make me stupid-happy, but all the explication in the world is not making every person I know happy after they've gone to "A History of Violence" on my recommendation
(2005-10-04)

The picture gets small
Festivals like Sundance, Slamdance and Chicago Underground have, in the past few years, embraced a smaller form of filmmaking, often rough, sometimes ragged, mingling techniques of documentary and fiction while also bringing the camera discomfortingly close to one's friends. The 2005 Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF) has a sturdy selection of this kind of movie
(2005-10-04)

Oliver's Twist
Pert Barney Clark is the hopeful, battered wanderer of "Oliver Twist," and while this 11-year-old cherub-of-steel is not as wide-eyed as Adrien Brody in "The Pianist," his journey across a wretched, teeming nineteenth-century London bears similarities to that fearful adventure
(2005-09-27)

Tip of the Week
(2005-09-27)

Tip of the Week
(2005-09-20)

Family way
(2005-09-20)

Arms and the Man
(2005-09-13)

Tip of the Week
(2005-09-13)

Sympathy for the possessed
(2005-09-06)

Tip of the Week
(2005-09-06)

Fall Forward: Film
(2005-08-31)

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