Domino

(Movie Review)

Because I was in Japan, I completely missed the buzz over this movie (if there was any). I just saw it in the video store and picked it up.

This movie also falls into the category of what I would call “hipster movies”. Lots of loud cool music on the soundtrack, slightly out of sequence, words flashing up on the screen, narration by one of the characters and lots of cool references to other movies, and celebrities appearing as themselves. It maybe a rip off of every other hipster movie over the last 15 years, but there is still plenty of brain candy, flashing lights, and quick cuts to cater to my ruined attention span.

(Particularly amusing, since one of the themes of this movie is the title characters hatred of “90210”, is two of the actors from 90210 appear as themselves and actually have a major role in this movie playing washed up actors. If nothing else, at least it shows these guys have a sense of humor, which I guess partly redeems them.)

Like a lot of other recent hipster movies, this one also features a lot of black humor and boarder-line sadism. Like “Kill Bill”, it features protagonists willing to hack off the limbs of their enemies, and then taunt them about it later. If you’re part of the club that’s cool enough to laugh at this, go ahead and enjoy that scene. I could have done without it, but found the movie entertaining enough in spite of it.

This movie is extremely loosely based on the life of female bounty hunter Domino Harvey who, I found out from the DVD extras afterwards, was actually a real person, although the movie took a lot of liberties with the story.

Since the film features a strong female character it might be thought of as a feminist movie, although Domino Harvey is not afraid to use her sexuality to get her out of tough spots. For example, when surrounded by bad guys with guns drawn, she offers to give one of them a free lap dance to get out of the situation and gain information. Something tells me this isn’t exactly the way John Wayne or Sylvester Stallone would have handled the situation, but I guess whatever works, right?

Like “Charlie’s Angels” (which this film references) it seems to call into question the line between a female character using her sexuality as power, and exploitation, especially the way the camera loves to point out the curves on Domino Harvey’s body.

Strangely enough, most girls I know seem to love these kind of movies. I once got my head bitten off by a female friend for saying I didn’t think “Charlie’s Angels” was a very feminist movie.

There is no doubt that we men are absolute idiots when confronted with a shapely woman, and if woman want to use this as part of their arsenal against us, fair enough. But at the very least, let us not fool ourselves into thinking we are doing something new or making progress with these kind of movies, because the “strong, seductive, kick ass but also easy to ogle” female characters have been around for a very long time. (I’m reminded particularly of the 1970s era Japanese heroine “Cutey-Honey".)

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Domino: Movie Review (Scripted)