Tony Scott month: Domino

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman “Why would you start here?!” Should be exactly what you are saying when thinking about a retrospective on Tony Scott. We are gonna cover his films often but this movie is one of those movies that I think was unfairly trashed. It is Tony Scott at his most Tony Scott. You can tell in every frame he is so happy and having such a great time. I think it’s great to start with a film where a director has openly said this was one of their favorite films to work on and go from there. It’s 2005 when Domino drops. This is one of those films that it is shocking a studio even made it. Domino is the story of Domino Harvey, the rebellious daughter of a old school movie star who went from being a model to being a bounty hunter. By concept alone you should be 100% sold. This film could have easily been in the lexicon of Fight Club but for women. She is a tough and misunderstood woman finding a place in the world where most are forgotten. That everything about her personality would come together. I believe that is what Tony Scott wanted to make. A movie that was as much a love letter to action films as it was a love letter to misunderstood women but something went wrong for audiences. Which leads me to why I opened with this. By the early 2000’s Tony Scott’s look become completely hijacked by the next generation of music video and commercial directors to come to Hollywood. Where Tony and his brother Ridley were fresh voices to cinema in the late 70’s and 80’s by the 90’s came around they had established the visual language of cinema. Guys like Michael Bay where wholesale ripping him off and doing it maybe a touch better. Enemy of The State and Spy Game start this move away with DP Dan Mendel adding multiple film stocks, shooting with like 10 cameras which becomes what he asks of all of his DP’s after Spy Game. At the same time the editing style of his films becomes this high speed shift of colors and film stocks making every seen kinetic and dramatic. It is the next level of what he thinks the Hollywood Blockbuster should look like. By the time Man on Fire comes around he is starting to see the limitations of this system but he ignores that when it comes to Domino. Domino becomes the most maximalist film of his filmography in terms of style. If you look at the poster for Domino it is a high bright neon yellow. That is how the whole film looks. It shoots L.A through this yellow haze then shifts to black and white then back. It is a relentless film. The edits come and rapid pace, the acting is never given room to breathe, the scenes shift it makes it hard to get any geography. Scott breaks every rule while playing with this palette of colors and sounds he has found. I think Scott goes this route because this film is personal to him. A studio didn’t bring this film to him. He read about the real Domino Harvey and bought her life rights directly from her. He interviewed her and they became lifelong friends. So what you see this high speed visual bath of insanity is how he saw LA through Domino’s eyes. He was excited to tell her story. Which leads me to the belief that this film works. It is not a masterpiece but it isn’t 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. It is the kind of cinema that directors make when they are infatuated with what they have made. It become close to the chest and you start to lose the forest from the trees but what you get is something genuine. So that’s why I opened with Domino because this is rosetta stone for everything he does from Spy Game on at 100% maximum excitement. As time goes on he works this down but to me Domino is everything about 2000’s Tony Scott that I love. Movie stars, wild fast edits, visceral action and the best use of Mickey Rourke outside of The Wrestler. I have more films to talk about but I wanted to open here. Stay tuned for Beverly Hills Cop 2 next from me and keep a look out for every other writers points on Tony’s films!