I’d never
heard of this movie, and I’ve never gotten into the whole Scandanavian noir
business that’s become popular in recent years, but DOMINO looked kind of
gritty and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau made Jamie Lannister a pretty interesting
character on GAME OF THRONES, so why not? Turns out to be an okay decision.
Coster-Waldau plays a police detective in Copenhagen who answers a domestic disturbance call with his partner. You know things like that never turn out well, and this one leads to violence and tragedy and plunges the hard-nosed cop into a complicated investigation that involves terrorism and international espionage, when all he really wants to do is catch a killer. Carice Van Houten plays another cop in the case, and Guy Pearce is a smarmy CIA agent.
The plot is okay and so are the performances, and there are some scenes that generate genuine suspense. As I was watching those scenes, I found myself thinking that the way they were edited and the use of music reminded me very much of Alfred Hitchcock, and then when the end credits rolled and I saw that DOMINO was directed by Brian De Palma, that explained it. De Palma has been making Hitchcock homages all the way back to the early days of his career. The first film of his I saw was OBSESSION, which was very much influenced by VERTIGO, and DRESSED TO KILL and BODY DOUBLE have to fall into that Hitchcockian category, too.
DOMINO is nowhere near that level, but it’s still an entertaining film and certainly worth watching.
Coster-Waldau plays a police detective in Copenhagen who answers a domestic disturbance call with his partner. You know things like that never turn out well, and this one leads to violence and tragedy and plunges the hard-nosed cop into a complicated investigation that involves terrorism and international espionage, when all he really wants to do is catch a killer. Carice Van Houten plays another cop in the case, and Guy Pearce is a smarmy CIA agent.
The plot is okay and so are the performances, and there are some scenes that generate genuine suspense. As I was watching those scenes, I found myself thinking that the way they were edited and the use of music reminded me very much of Alfred Hitchcock, and then when the end credits rolled and I saw that DOMINO was directed by Brian De Palma, that explained it. De Palma has been making Hitchcock homages all the way back to the early days of his career. The first film of his I saw was OBSESSION, which was very much influenced by VERTIGO, and DRESSED TO KILL and BODY DOUBLE have to fall into that Hitchcockian category, too.
DOMINO is nowhere near that level, but it’s still an entertaining film and certainly worth watching.
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