Domino

Domino Harvey (as played by Keira Knightley), had a life that just screams to be made into a movie. Basically, Domino was a spoiled model who decided to take the catty take-no-prisoner glare she so ferociously displayed in the modeling field and transitioned that attitude to life as a bounty hunter. The concept certainly has appeal: the modeling industry has turned models into superheroes of sorts, and it's not hard to imagine them with butt-kicking powers, even though most of them could probably be snapped like a twig. Knightley has the unenviable task of trying to project herself as meaner than she really is, albeit a highly sanitized version that features far less drugs.

The plot, if you can call it that, supposedly revolves around a little girl on her deathbed, a bank robbery gone awry, tattooed lock combinations, Jerry Springer, Tom Waits music, and a lot of coin flipping. The idea being that Harvey is some kind Joker-esque madwoman (or perhaps that's Two-Face) who sees life as a coin flip. As Dryden once said: "'Tis Fate who flings the dice, and as she flings, of kings makes peasants and of peasants kings."

A pretty weighty concept, except Domino is so caught up with its whip-snap, hyperkinetic perspectives that the movie quickly wears out its welcome. The plot of Domino has nowhere to go. It's supposed to ratchet up the tension but doesn't, tries to create a love triangle of sorts between Harvey and her two bounty hunter companions but just comes off icky, and yet conveniently ignores the huge white elephant in the room: Harvey's drug use.

The specter of drug use overshadows the film. It killed Harvey just before the film premiered. When the real Domino Harvey shows up in a cameo, she is a skeleton of her former self. And yet drug use is always the dark realm of the bad guys, even though we know full well that it consumed Harvey.

Domino is too long, too distracted, and too clever for its own good. It tries to be everything: black comedy, action film, serious dissertation on life, bounty hunter couture, and more. It ends up not achieving any of those goals and just comes off as a big, ugly mess.