However annoying it can be to hear a native Brit saying "ass" instead of "arse" -- or even having a go at "butt" -- there are times when only the American word sounds right. Here to prove that is Keira Knightley, who has swapped her Jane Austen bonnets for some transfer tattoos, playing Domino Harvey, daughter of movie idol Laurence Harvey. She was a privileged English girl who in real life became an LA bounty hunter and an all-round sexy badass -- or rather bad-arse.
Bounty hunting is a dangerous vocation; so why should Domino choose it, you ask? Sounding like a falsetto Dan Maskell, Knightley chirrups: "So I could kick arse and not do time." Kick arse? I don't think I have ever heard the word pronounced with a longer vowel. That is possibly how the real Domino spoke, yet Knightley's tough act is about as convincing as Boris Johnson doing a live medley of 50 Cent covers.
Director Tony Scott's macho-sentimental tribute to Harvey neglects to mention her real-life drug problem, which contributed to her death in June this year after the movie was complete -- discovered dead in her apartment due to a painkiller overdose, while awaiting trial for dealing narcotics. The omission of drugs is therefore all the more glaring and embarrassing, and Scott simply slaps an unexplained tribute on the closing credits, dedicating his film to her "memory." But what precisely is being remembered? And why? It's not a straight biopic but apparently a selective, fictionalized account of events which are of limited interest in the first place. The result is a chaotic, violent and baffling action thriller without shape or perspective, in which every frame has been cranked up with flashy editing and boiling cinematography.
After the traumatic death of her goldfish -- and the emotional scar tissue is simply piling up -- Domino grows up to be a fierce babe with attitude and that exotic first name is a token of how supercool she is. I can only say that Tony Scott here missed a massive opportunity for comedy. Would it have killed him to include a scene where she trips over and bumps into someone, causing them to topple over, hitting someone else, and they topple over, and so on?
Transplanted to America by her ambitious mother after Laurence dies, Domino gets kicked out of school and answers an ad for bounty hunters in a discarded paper -- the US edition of The Lady, perhaps? She hooks up with two bounty-hunting hombres, Mickey Rourke and Edgar Ramirez, controlled by the unscrupulous Delroy Lindo. But things get terrifyingly out of control when Lindo involves them in a plan to heist US$10m.
The most excruciating moment comes when Domino gets out of a tight situation with a Latino gang by offering to give their leader a lapdance. "Bra and panties on," she specifies primly -- a proviso which the gangstas accept with remarkable gallantry. Later on, Domino's gang will mutilate someone because Lindo gives her instructions to "take off his shirt so you can see his arm" over a crackling mobile phone. It comes out as "take off ... his arm" and they duly hack off the poor fellow's arm! D'oh! D'oh squared! D'oh tripled with knobs on! In this macabre situation, Tony Scott finds neither horror nor Tarantinoesque black comedy. It is just part of the featureless splurge of violence.
So is this new tough routine one for Knightley's showreel? An answer is provided in the scene where teenage Domino insists on practising her martial arts moves by the family pool. Her posh mum, played by Jacqueline Bisset, drawls from her lounger in a Kensington accent: "Give the goddamn nunchucks a rest, already." You heard your mother. Do give the nunchucks a rest.
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