Domino is a 2005 action film directed by Tony Scott; inspired by the story of Domino Harvey, the English daughter of stage and screen actor Laurence Harvey, who became a bounty hunter working in Los Angeles. The film is dedicated to Domino Harvey, who died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl on June 27, 2005, before the film was released.
The film stars Keira Knightley as Domino. The screenplay was written by Richard Kelly.
Plot
Domino Harvey, a bounty hunter, has been arrested by the FBI, who are investigating the theft of $10 million from an armored truck, which happened 36 hours previously. Domino is interviewed by criminal psychologist Taryn Mills 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, Choco and their Afghani driver Alf. They are employed by Claremont Williams III, a bail bondsman who also runs an armored car business. As their careers as bounty hunters succeeds, they are tapped to star in a television reality show. Domino, as the first-person narrator of the film, reveals that this decision was where it all began to go wrong for the bounty-hunter crew.
Claremont's mistress, Lateesha Rodriguez, works for the Los Angeles Department of Motor Vehicles. Lateesha has been running a counterfeit drivers licence racket. A teenager named Frances arrives at the DMV and asks Lateesha for fake drivers licenses for himself, his brother, and two of their friends.
Lateesha's granddaughter Mica is suffering from a blood disease and needs an operation urgently. The operation that Mica needs costs $300,000 which Lateesha does not have. Claremont comes up with a plan to get the money by setting up a robbery of Drake Bishop of $10 million. Bishop is the billionaire owner of the Stratosphere Casino in Las Vegas and a client of Claremont's armored car business. His plan is to have his bounty hunters return the stolen money and collect a $300,000 finder's fee from Bishop, which would then pay for Mica's operation.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation are tipped about Lateesha's counterfeit drivers 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 Lashandra, Lashindra and Raoul, three of her co-workers at the DMV. Claremont then finds out that Frances and his brother, who Lateesha framed for the robbery, are the sons of mafia boss Anthony Cigliutti. Unknown to Claremont, Drake Bishop has been laundering money for Cigliutti, meaning that the stolen money actually belongs to the mob. Claremont phones Lateesha and tells her to abort the plan, and subsequently picks up Lateesha, Lashandra and Lashindra and Raoul at a gas station, leaving the money with getaway driver Locus Fender. Locus flees the gas station and locks the money in a freezer at 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 Drake Bishop at the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Following a shootout with Locus's mother the money is retrieved.
Anthony Cigliutti is told about his sons' arrest and is led to believe that Drake 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 gives $300,000 of the money to Lateesha for Mica's operation, which was to have been their finder's fee for reclaiming the stolen money. At the Stratosphere Domino, Ed, Choco and driver Alf then 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 then turns up with his crew. Though Bishop denies he has had Cigliutti's sons killed, Cigliutti nonetheless shoots Bishop. In the ensuing gunfight Choco and Ed are severely wounded, but manage to make it into the elevator with the unwounded Domino. The driver 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.
Background
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,[1] 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 the film rights to her life. According to The Los Angeles Times, Harvey was paid $360,000 for the rights.[2]
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 whom they worked for.
20th Century Fox, which had a first refusal deal on the project, turned it down[3] and in the end the film was financed by New Line Cinema.
Screenplay
Steve Barancik wrote the first draft of the screenplay[4] which Tony Scott rejected. Another writer was asked to write a screenplay but Scott also rejected this script. Scott described the two rejected screenplays as conventional biopics of Domino Harvey's life, which was not what he had in mind for the film. Finally, Richard Kelly was asked to write the screenplay after Scott read his script for Southland Tales.[5] Kelly was sent transcripts of Domino Harvey's interviews with Tony Scott, though he did not read the scripts that Scott had rejected.[6] 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".[7]
Cast
Release and box office
The release date of the film was announced and delayed several times. The original release date was August 19, 2005 (announced on April 7). On May 22, the release date was changed to November 4. On June 28, the release date was changed to November 23. On July 11, it was moved to October 14, 2005, which was the date the film was released on.[10]. The film was given a Premiere on 11 October 2005 in Los Angeles. The Motion Picture Association of America gave the film an R rating.
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 4 weeks and ended up with a domestic gross of $10,169,202. The foreign gross for the film was $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[11].
While the film did receive some positive reviews, notably from both Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper who gave the film "two thumbs up", reviews were generally negative. Popular movie site Rotten Tomatoes lists the film as "Rotten" with a rating of only 17%; Metacritic scored the film at 36, and described the compiled list of reviews as "generally negative".
DVD and Blu-ray
The film was released on DVD on 21 February 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.[12] The film was released on Blu-ray on 20 January 2009[13].
References
- ^ Summers, Chris When hunting people is a career, BBC News Online, 12 October 2005, Retrieved 21 May 2007
- ^ Lee, Chris, The Fall of a Thrill Hunter, The Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2005, Retrieved 24 May 2007
- ^ Hart, Hugh, A rich, beautiful bounty hunter, sfgate.com, 9/10/2005, retrieved 9/6/2008
- ^ Audio commentary featuring Tony Scott and Richard Kelly on the DVD
- ^ Domino Production Notes keiraweb.com Retrieved 18 May 2007
- ^ Murray, Rebecca, Richard Kelly Discusses "Domino", "Working with Tony Scott, and "Southland Tales", About.com, 30 August 2005, Retrieved 24 May 2007
- ^ Richard sets the record straight on Domino, richard-kelly.net, 30 June 2005, Retrieved 24 May 2007
- ^ Hewitt, Chris, Scott of the Kinetic, empireonline.com, retrieved 2/6/2009
- ^ "Domino" Interviews:Mickey Rourke and Edgar Ramirez, Hollywood.com, retrieved 9/6/08
- ^ Domino promotions page, keiraweb.com, retrieved 4/10/07
- ^ Box office/business for Domino Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Domino DVD Comparison dvdcompare.net Retrieved 30/9/07
- ^ Domino (US BD) in January dvdtimes.co.uk retrieved 9/2/09
External links
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Loving Memory (1969)
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