Tagline of the week: Courtesy of Domino

“Heads you live. Tails you die.”

This is the unofficial tagline for the film Domino. We hear actress Keira Knightly say these words as the screen fades to black in the last five seconds of the trailer .

Domino is Tony Scott’s latest directorial endeavor, a film apparently based on the true story of Domino Harvey, the daughter of Hollywood actor Lawrence Harvey. As a young woman, Domino Harvey was ramped up to be the next big supermodel out of the Ford Modeling agency, but instead decided to forgo her privileged lifestyle and become a criminal bounty hunter. Keira Knightly plays the lead role of Domino and quite openly admits that she based her character very, very loosely on the actual individual. In fact, the trailer begins by showing the text: Based on a true story…..sort of.

This is the kind of thing that drives me up the wall. There are films that are based closely and accurately on real events and people, like Shattered Glass based on the Stephen Glass scandal at the New Republic. Then there are completely original, fictional works like Evil Dead. But please, none of this partially, kinda true story B.S., attempting for some sort of half-assed credibility. Not to mention the fact that horror movies like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror boldly proclaim during opening credits that they are based on a true story. The phrase “based on a true story” has become as trite in Hollywood as the “and they lived happily ever after.”

The cast of Domino is quite intriguing. It has your good old standbys like Christopher Walken and Jacqueline Bisset, but it also lists a wide variety of other stars (and in some cases former stars) in what I can only assume will be cameo roles. This list includes Mo’Nique, Macy Gray, Ian Zeiring, and Brian Austin Green among many others. Hold on, I know you’re thinking, did I just hallucinate seeing the names Ian Zering and Brian Austin Green? No, I can assure you, you didn’t. The whole supporting cast sounds like a mixer between the casts of 90210 and a Ludacris video.

I think Keira Knightly is a pretty good actress. She certainly has the looks, and she was good in Pirates of the Carribean and Bend it like Beckham, but mezzo-mezzo in the Jacket, and the God awful Love Actually. I buy the model portion of the character, but she better have done some major buffing up to convince me that she can lift anything heavier than a green bean, let alone an AK47 in each arm.

“Heads you live. Tails you die.”

Funny how if you take away the a couple s’ the tagline just takes on a whole different meaning. Don’t get your hopes up boys, I think Keira has a nudity clause.