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The (mostly) true story of a Hollywood
princess turned bounty hunter inspired this witty action drama from director
Tony Scott. Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley) was the daughter of famed actor
Lawrence Harvey (played by Jesse Pate) who passed on when Domino was only
eight years old. Domino's mother, former fashion model Paulette Stone
(Jacqueline Bisset), strove to give her daughter a comfortable life, but
Domino was naturally rebellious, and after a contentious stint in boarding
school, a brief career as a runway model and a fling with the fashion
business, Domino was looking for something more exciting. She found it when
he met Ed Mosbey (Mickey Rourke), an ex-con who had gone on to a successful
career as a "bail recovery agent" -- in short, a bounty hunter. Ed also
taught others how to join his profession, and Domino took his course and
joined his team, along with Choco (Edgar Ramirez), a headstrong bail agent
who took an immediate fancy to Domino. Domino, Ed and Choco became a
successful team -- successful enough that television producer Mark Heiss
(Christopher Walken) asked them to become the subject of a television
reality series. However, it was after the cameras were turned on Domino that
her life got truly crazy -- bail bondsman Claremont Williams III (Delroy
Lindo) had hired Domino and her friends for a risky case, and soon Domino,
Ed and Choco were chasing missing men and money while landing in hot water
with both the FBI and the Mafia. Domino was loosely based on Domino Harvey's
real life story; sadly her personal life was as reckless as her career, and
Domino died as a result of drug abuse on June 27, 2005, after this film was
completed. The film also features Lucy Liu, Mena Suvari, Macy Gray, and
Dabney Coleman. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Nach einer (fast) wahren Geschichte - Domino (Keira Knightley)
kommt als Tochter des Schauspielstars Lawrence Harvey und des Topmodels
Sophia Wynn in einer Welt voller Reichtum zur Welt - und schert sich keinen
Tag ihres Lebens um vermeintliche Privilegien. Nach einem kurzen Ausflug in
die Fashion-Welt als Model findet sie ihre Bestimmung - eher zufällig, als
sie an einem Seminar für Kopfgeldjäger teilnimmt. Domino verliebt sich nicht
nur in diesen gefährlichen Straßenjob, sondern findet in ihren grimmigen
Kollegen auch eine Art Ersatzfamilie. Der raubeinige und mit allen Wassern
gewaschene Ex-Kriminelle Ed Mosbey (Mickey Rourke) wird zu
ihrem Mentor, während sie vom attraktiven Latino Choco (Edgar
Ramirez) heimlich verehrt wird. Der Dritte im Bunde ist Alf (RIZWAN
ABASSI), ein afghanischer Einwanderer, der die Gang mit seiner Vorliebe für
Sprengstoff unterstützt. Zusammen spürt dieses unorthodoxe Quartett so viele
flüchtende Verbrecher auf, dass der TV-Produzent Mark Heiss (Christopher
Walken) auf sie aufmerksam wird und sie zu Stars in der
Reality-TV-Serie namens „The Bounty Squad“ macht. Was jedoch keiner der
Beteiligten weiß: Die vier Kopfgeldjäger stehen kurz vor ihrem schwierigsten
Job. Unfreiwillig ausgelöst durch ihren Auftraggeber, den Kautionshändler
Claremont Williams III (Delroy Lindo), geraten sie mitten
in einen bizarren FBI-Fall, in dem es um viel Geld und extrem dubiose
Machenschaften geht. Um diesem Geflecht von Gefahren und Komplikationen
lebendig zu entkommen, müssen Domino und ihre Partner zu radikalen Mitteln
und Tricks greifen....



Ein Film wie ein Drogenrausch. Diesen Eindruck erweckt die jüngste
Regiearbeit von Tony Scott, dem jüngeren Bruder des Blade Runner-Regisseurs
Ridley. Abrupte Schnitte, permanente Wackelkamera, unvermittelte Zooms,
Überbelichtung, die ständig wechselnde Qualität des Filmmaterials und eine
Tonspur, die so sprunghaft ist, wie die Bilder selbst, verwandeln Scotts
Domino in einen zweistündigen Trip filmischer Exzesse.
So rasant wie der Film, soll auch das Leben der realen Person Domino
Harvey verlaufen sein, die Tochter des 1973 verstorbenen Schauspielers
Laurence Harvey (Darling, 1965), die in den USA erst als
Modell, dann als Kopfgeldjägerin arbeitete. Scotts Film, der nach einem
Drehbuch von Richard Kelly entstanden ist, dem Autor und Regisseur von Donnie Darko (2001), orientiert sich jedoch lediglich an
einigen Stationen aus dem Leben Harveys, die 2005 mit 36 Jahren an einer
Schmerzmittelüberdosis starb.


In einem weiteren Schritt nutzt Scott für das Porträt der filmischen
Kunstfigur Domino gar die körperliche Hülle, ihre Haut, als Indikator
der Persönlichkeit. So scheint ein eintätowierter Satz auf ihrem Nacken
ihr inneres Wesen zu offenbaren: „Tears in the Rain“. Es handelt sich um
ein Zitat aus dem Science-Fiction-Klassiker Blade Runner (1982). In dem Monolog des Replikanten Batty trauert dieser im dem
Moment, in dem ihm die Lebenskräfte verlassen, um die Vergänglichkeit
seiner Seele. All seine Erinnerungen wären verloren, wie „Tränen im
Regen“. Beiden Figuren scheint ein selbstzerstörerischer Drang
anzuhaften, durch den sie erst ihren Körper fühlen können. Ihrer eigenen
Vergänglichkeit stets bewusst, begeben sie sich auf eine religiöse
Suche. War es in Blade Runner noch der Kubrick-Schauspieler Joe
Turkel, der für Batty als geistiger Vater der künstlichen Humanoiden
gottesgleich in Erscheinung tritt, trifft Domino in einer
Schicksalshaften Begegnung ihren Schöpfer in der Gestalt eines
Reisenden, der von Tom Waits gespielt wird. An Domino zeigt
sich wiederholt Scotts Vorliebe für christliche Motive, deren Einsatz
von True Romance (1993) bis zu seinem Rache-Film
Mann
unter Feuer (Man on Fire, 2004) reicht.




Production Notes:
http://www.keiraweb.com/domprod.html
“It’s a very complex story,” Scott admits.
“It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle. The audience has to pay attention in order
to stay with all the beats of the story. We play it in forward and we
play it in flashback. But for me the story is really about a girl who
lives in the house on the hill and dreams of being a bounty hunter and
then escapes that dream by the skin of her teeth – time stood still for
that period – and that was the real Domino.”
He cast 20-year-old Keira Knightley from
gut instinct. “Domino and Keira are different personalities to be
sure,” the director says. “The real Domino was darker, a little more out
there, but on the surface they are both English girls – a little
innocence, a little Princess Di mixed with discomfort at being slotted
into that role. They both come from a different planet that does not mix
well with the dark world of bounty hunting. I could see Keira as that
girl. Taking Keira on this journey of being Domino Harvey was akin to
how the real Domino felt when first being exposed to this dark world.”
Knightley is quick to point out that her
portrayal is not an imitation of the real Domino; rather the actress
drew from the film’s real-life muse for inspiration. “There is no point
in doing an accurate characterization unless the entire story is
accurate,” she says. “So that gave me a lot of freedom to explore the
mentality of someone who comes from a privileged background and decides
to go off on her own path, in a completely opposite direction. She had
a strong rebellious streak. I found the combination fascinating. And
even though Domino knew that we were not one hundred percent faithful to
her story, I hope she would have liked what we created:"
International actress Jacqueline Bisset
appears as Domino’s mother, Sophie Wynn [a pseudonym]. In the 1970s
Bisset was acquainted with Domino’s real mother, an elegant,
sophisticated woman who had lived an idyllic life with her handsome
actor husband.
“I always find role models for my actors in
real life, and then I try and find actors who are those characters,“
says Scott. “Mickey Rourke was Ed and Edgar Ramirez was Choco. Ed was
from Los Angeles and Choco was from El Salvador, but they were like
brothers.”
When Rourke heard that Tony Scott wanted
him for another film, he agreed without hesitation. “I love Tony
Scott,” he says. “He’s a cut above most directors in Hollywood. He’s
an actor’s director; he can bring you right to the edge. And I like the
movies he makes.”
“The script didn’t really come alive for me
until Tony, Keira, Edgar and I started working together,” explains
Rourke of his process. “We sat in a room and discussed how we saw the
characters beyond the obvious facts that Domino is a girl from London
who decides to be a bounty hunter, and Choco is a hot-tempered Latin,
and Ed is a godfather character.”

Domino is Christopher Walken’s third film
for Tony Scott. He portrays Mark Heiss, a high-strung, television
executive. Mena Suvari plays his faithful assistant Kimmie.
“Chris is fantastic,” says
Scott. “He could read the phonebook and engage you. I don’t know what
it is about this guy, people always think it’s improvisation, but I
believe he does a lot of homework very quietly. He’ll ask how I see the
character, then goes away and comes back and does his own thing. I get
such pleasure out of watching him perform, watching his character come
to life.”
When Walken was on set,
Scott was always laughing. “Mark Heiss is manic,” the director
continues. “He is a ferret on crystal meth. Chris capitalized off that
description. Kimmie has been sucked into the world of this ferret and
is now part of the syndrome, so she acts like she’s on crystal meth,
too. It’s the classic Hollywood boss/kiss-ass sycophantic assistant
bond, and the combination of these two actors makes it funny because you
don’t expect to see them in those roles. They compliment each other
brilliantly and Mena is a terrific springboard for Chris. Take after
take, she would set him up and he would take off in different
directions.”
“It’s a great cast, very
varied and fun, strange and dark, a rock n’ roll cast,” says Scott.
“They are inherently funny and that makes it easy for me to know what
I’m looking for when it comes to casting. Whenever I get into
difficulty with actors, I know to suggest that they spend some time with
the real people they are portraying.”

Im Film sagt Mena Suvari, dass ihr Boss
(Christopher Walken) die Aufmerksamkeitsspanne eines Frettchens auf
Drogen hat (weshalb man nur in kurzen Sätzen sprechen sollte, womit sein
überdrehter Charakter angekündigt wird). War Walken früher auf die Rolle
des Bösewichts, so scheint er jetzt auf durchgeknallte Typen abonniert
zu sein. Rasante Aktionen des Kopfgeldjägerteams kommentiert er im
Übertragungswagen mit "geil, wow, boom" und den inzwischen üblichen
Grimassen- und nimmt dazu einen inzwischen auch üblichen Filmimbiss ein.
Im Büro trägt er noch seine bekannte Bürstenfrisur (extra kurz), aber
auf dem Set kreuzt er wie wie Jacobs Vater persönlich auf (Anm: der aus
Sarah, Plain and Tall:-)
DVD-Special:
Interview mit
Christopher Walken
...über die echte Domino Harvey/...über Tony Scott



...
on Domino Harvey
...
on Tony Scott
2 Deleted Scenes:

Scene
#1
Scene
#2

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