Domino
New Line Cinema | Release Date: October 14, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
15
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
Sure, it's amusing, but it isn't much more. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It's fractured and maddening, but it's alive. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
A lollapalooza of delectable cheap thrills. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The movie is full of possibilities. Frustratingly, only a few of them are realized. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
It now seems that style has completely replaced substance in Scott's films, and he leaves gaping holes in his heroine's character. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle Smith
Among the year's ultraviolent pulp movies, "Sin City" was prettier and "The Devil's Rejects" more focused. Read full review
60
EmpireSam Toy
Individual sequences are all impeccably assembled, Rourke's grizzled vet chips in some memorable deadpan dialogue. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
It's good sleazy fun for a while, jacked up with an assortment of edgy visuals, but the greenish yellow tint favored by action director Tony Scott is a good metaphor for the movie's jaundiced sensibility. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Thanks to dynamic performances by Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramirez and a strong cast -- sometimes all but buried beneath irksome stylistic flourishes -- this dark and absurd melodrama certainly has raw energy. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Yes, the film is interesting, but it doesn't work. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
It's not so important to follow plot twists--I couldn't--but the emotional thrust Kelly and Scott want to drive home is plain: Once Domino is asked to use guns and knives and nunchucks for a purpose outside the law, she's alarmed, appalled, aghast. Read full review
50
Film ThreatStina Chyn
When a film is more conducive to a scholarly dissection than a consumerist examination, the film is incredibly clever, pragmatic, or pretentious. In the case of Domino, it's all of the above. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Features one of the more pointless cameos ever when Tom Waits shows up abruptly in the desert to spout mystical nonsense about Domino trading her life for somebody else's. The scene has absolutely no place in this jarring, violent movie; Waits is just another of Scott's distractions. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Domino should have been a terrific anti-heroine, but the movie never gets deep enough inside this walking time bomb to reveal what makes her tick. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The picture is an exercise in exploitation joi de vivre, and your enjoyment of it will depend on your tolerance for shameless, reckless, unredemptive violence with relatively little artistic or spiritual value. After all, there's a time and a place for everything. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Given the decibel level of this movie, it's a miracle that these guys were able to give creditable performances. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the achievement: Imagine delivering a stirring rendition of the Gettysburg Address while standing under Niagara Falls. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Satisfying neither as character study nor as straight-ahead actioner. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyJames C. Taylor
Scott's lack of faith in the script is all too evident -- in most scenes, the lines are so dull, he has to up the ante of his already-infamous attention-deficit style. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
So over-plotted that it's borderline incomprehensible. Read full review
40
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
It's like a ferret on crystal meth that belatedly discovers ecstasy, and it's a tiresome trip either way. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
The reality-show producer played by Walken is described by his assistant (Suvari) as having the attention span of a "ferret on speed." I'm sure he would love Domino. Read full review
38
USA TodayMike Clark
You can't accuse this film of bogging down in cheap psychology, yet you come out dissatisfied and without a clue about what made this person tick. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The truly appalling thing, though, is the stupidity of the screenplay by Richard Kelly. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Domino is less a movie than a hyperkinetic slide show - presented during a nuclear attack. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
Scott means for his entertainment package to be hip, hysterical fun. But his stylistic embellishments and indiscriminate appetite for sensation crowds his title character right out of the film. Read full review
38
PremierePeter Debruge
I suspect Scott sees Domino as the ultimate provocation, his way of grabbing Hollywood by the throat and shouting, "You want reality??! I'll give you REALITY!!!" Sort of. Read full review
37
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The movie is quite off its rocker: Jerry Springer, Chrisopher Walken, Tom Waits as a roadside prophet, a miscast, nervous Lucy Liu as an FBI agent -- it's a feverish, violent jumble that's shot as if high on mescaline -- the drug, not the salad. Read full review
30
Village VoiceJessica Winter
The script, allegedly by "Donnie Darko's" Richard Kelly, throws together tangentially related plots like cats in a sack. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Domino de-emphasizes the human element--not to mention such niceties as plot and clarity--to such a degree that only those who show up purely to watch combustibles go "boom" won't feel insulted. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The movie is trash shot to look like art imitating trash. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
His [Director Tony Scott's] pornographic lust for bloodletting, gunplay, and out-of-control camerawork far exceeds his abilities to tell a story. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
In small doses, this looks kind of cool. For two hours, it's excruciating. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
Two hours of senselessness and overkill, decked out in lurid, bad-trip colors. Read full review
0
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Domino is a new definition of a snuff movie. It snuffs out every vestige of feeling.
0
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Staggeringly awful. Read full review
0
SlateDavid Edelstein
Domino seemed to me the end of the world for movies--a glimpse of a future so excruciating that I'd prefer to take my chances with Hitchcock's eye-gouging avians. Read full review
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