Domino Harvey was the daughter of “The Manchurian Candidate” star Lawrence Harvey. He died when she was eight, but that still made Domino the child of both wealth and privilege. Blessed with angelic good looks, she was a model for a short time, dazzling onlookers strutting down the catwalk. But, for the majority of her life, this woman was not a socialite, not a supermodel. For almost two decades Domino Harvey was none of these things. Domino Harvey, for reason entirely her own, was a bounty hunter. 

On June 27, 2005, Domino Harvey was found dead in her Los Angeles Home. The answers to who she was and why she lived the life the she did died with her. What those answers were – are – we will probably never know, all of them dying with her.

They certainly aren’t going to be found in Tony Scott’s highly fictionalized foray into the woman’s life “Domino.” Working from a wildly imaginative screenplay by “Donnie Darko” creator Richard Kelly (and from a story co-written by Kelly and Steve Barancik), this movie is a drug-induced surrealistic freak show of psychosis and absurdist inhumanity at its zenith. There are no people here, nothing remotely tangible a person could put their fingers on and actually feel. It is, in fact, a nightmare, a dreamscape of an ever-downward spiral taking the people traveling down it straight into the pit of Hell.

Frankly, “Domino” is not a very good movie. It’s nihilistic style over anything even remotely substantive. Scott breaks out his entire bag of tricks, jumping things backwards and forwards and then back again with complete disregard for the audience’s enjoyment (or their mental well being). At over 120 minutes, it’s preposterously long, huge stretches going off into tangents so absurd and unrealistic by the time all is said and done the only way to handle it all is to consider everything occurring onscreen comedic farce supped up as if on Speed.

All that said, not for one headache-causing second could I take my eyes off of it. There is an almost train wreck-like majesty to what Scoot and Kelly have decided to throw up upon the screen. It is as if the two of them re-watched the desert acid trip sequence of Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” and then decided to create an entire two-hour movie in its homage. There’s even a Mescaline-fueled road trip (which even includes an apparently stigmata-inflicted Tom Waits), that’s so over-saturated and jumpy Stone will probably stand up in the theater and applaud, the whole thing climaxing with an RV literally doing summersaults across the Nevada skyline.

The plot is an over-complicated puzzle (that actually might work if Scott would just show some restraint) with Domino (Keira Knightley) taking up bounty hunting (pretty much on a whim) and teaming up with the legendary Ed Mosbey (Mickey Rourke, who continues his career resurgence with his galvanizing work) sexy Latino Choco (Edgar Ramirex) to catch bad guys. Their employer is a bail bondsman named Claremont (Delroy Lindo) who’s family is faced with financial crisis revolving around a dying child (who might be the second coming of Christ, if you believe Waits) in need of a $300,000 medical procedure. Throw in an FBI criminal psychologist (Lucy Liu) who likes sharpening pencils, an overzealous reality television show producer (Christopher Walken), a smarmy Vegas casino owner (Dabney Coleman), a dillusionally overprotective mother (Jacqueline Bisset) and “Beverly Hills 90210” stars Brian Austin Green and Ian Ziering (who show a lot of self-effacing charm), and the only thing missing is the proverbial kitchen sink.

By the time it really gets rolling, not much going on actually makes a lick of sense. Not that I think Kelly means for it to. “Domino” isn’t an action film and it isn’t a thriller, it’s a comedy; a devilishly dark and wickedly acidic satirical comedy that’s going to confound far more viewers than it will enthrall. And it is funny, sometimes shockingly so, Scott so unafraid to push the envelope of good taste to its breaking point he lets Kelly’s imagination as to the possibilities seemingly run wild.

But that doesn’t make it good. Knightley, she of the ravishing good looks and the intoxicating smile that could turn rain clouds into rainbows, is not capable of carrying this movie. She’s hopelessly miscast, and by the time she trades a lap dance for information (not to mention for her crew’s lives) it’s impossible not to giggle out loud for entirely the wrong reasons. Watching her play Domino is like watching a six-year-old play dress up in her grandmother’s clothes. She’s playacting, and it’s hard to watch her without thinking everything about the woman in regards to her performance here is just plain ludicrous.

This is the least of Scott’s problems, however. For those that thought the director overdid the quick jump cuts and the ultra-saturated cinematography in “Man on Fire,” you ain’t seen nothing yet. Even when Kelly’s script approaches brilliance (and how could any script pointing its middle finger at the DMV for all the world’s ills not?), Scott handcuffs both him and his actors time and time again just for the sake of throwing out a few gazillion more of his trademark visuals. The longer “Domino” lasts the more annoying it becomes, everything coming to a head in a fetishistic orgy of bloody babes and bullets that’s sure to go down as a Maxim reader’s wet dream.

I do not know who Domino Harvey was. I do not know why she chose to become a bounty hunter. I have no clue as to the events that occurred leading up to her untimely death.

Scott did know Domino Harvey. He was her friend for over a decade. He’s knows her family, her history. It is a shame this friendship could not have led to a better movie. Because, while I don’t know Domino, I do know she deserved better than having her name on something sure to drive people insane. Like a bullet to the head, “Domino” is something lethal a rational person should go out of their way to avoid.

Film Rating: ê1/2  (out of 4)