DOMINO (Denmark/Belgium/Netherlands/Italy/ UK/France/Spain - 2019) Directed by Brian De Palma. Written by Petter Skavlan. Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Carice van Houten, Guy Pearce, Eriq Ebouaney, Mohammed Azaay, Soren Malling, Paprika Steen, Thomas W. Gabrielsson, Emrin Dalgic, Illias Adabb, Helena Kaittani. (R, 89 mins) As anyone who saw George A. Romero's final film SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, or John Carpenter's last film to date, THE WARD, or Warren Beatty's RULES DON'T APPLY, or nearly everything Dario Argento's done for the last 25 or so years, or observed the multi-decade downfall of Tobe Hooper can attest, great filmmakers often lose their way as time goes on. It can be due to a variety of reasons--from getting stuck with journeymen gigs, to an inability to get the financing they need to do the projects they want, or simply losing their mojo and coasting on their reputation and name value (or, in Beatty's specific case, being away from the game for too many years). With the exception of 2007's REDACTED, his unsuccessful attempt to replicate CASUALTIES OF WAR in an Iraq War setting, the legendary Brian De Palma has been bankrolled almost entirely by foreign backers since 2002's French-produced FEMME FATALE. There was a time in the early '80s--that incredible streak of DRESSED TO KILL, BLOW OUT, SCARFACE, and BODY DOUBLE--when De Palma, one of the most visionary and stylish American filmmakers of his generation, was absolutely on fire. His dazzling, hypnotic set pieces, the split-screens, and the intricate timing and choreography were uniquely his own even as he constantly paid tribute to Hitchcock. He also demonstrated an ability to handle commercial hits like THE UNTOUCHABLES and the first installment of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE franchise. Now 78, De Palma works sporadically enough these days that each new film still qualifies as legitimate event for those disciples who've followed his career dating back to the late '60s (and if you haven't seen Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's 2016 documentary DE PALMA, you must). DOMINO, a seven-country co-production and De Palma's first film since 2013's PASSION, was shot back in 2017 and is only now getting a stealth VOD burial from US distributor Lionsgate. This comes a couple months after the trailer went online, prompting De Palma to disown the released version, which he claims was taken from him by the film's Danish financiers--the primary backers of the project--who cut it from 148 minutes down to a bare-bones 89. De Palma's name is still on the film, though other than a few scattered deployments of his signature split diopter shots--which everyone does now in homage to him--the severely-compromised DOMINO never feels like a De Palma film until the climax, and even that is so gutted and badly-assembled that it plays more like someone trying to rip off De Palma and blowing it.
Set for no reason whatsoever in "June of 2020" and headlined by two GAME OF THRONES stars (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Carice van Houten), DOMINO was intended to be a topical thriller addressing issues in the war on terror and government surveillance, but in its current state, it's just another run-of-the-mill VOD thriller that's completely devoid of suspense and almost all sense of its maker's style. Coster-Waldau is Christian Toft, a Copenhagen detective and recovering alcoholic whose absent-mindedness (he left his gun at home) leads to his partner Lars Hansen (Soren Malling) having his throat slashed by a suspect during a botched arrest and falling into a coma. The suspect is Libyan immigrant Ezra Tarzi (Eriq Ebouaney, memorable as "Black Tie" in FEMME FATALE), who was trying to escape an apartment building where he just tortured and killed Farooq Hares (Emrin Dalgic), a member of ISIS who was stockpiling guns and military-grade explosives. After a strangely unexciting chase along steep rooftops with loose clay shingles (during which Toft loses the gun Hansen let him borrow) that finds both men falling into a convenient vegetable cart on the street below, Tarzi is whisked away by a crew of CIA mystery men led by smirking agent Joe Martin (Guy Pearce). Martin is after ISIS leader Salah Al-din (Mohammed Azaay), who's also the man who executed Tarzi's father. This prompts the CIA to form an unholy alliance with Tarzi as Martin gives him a new identity as a Jordanian diplomat with instructions to terminate Al-din. Meanwhile, Toft is assigned a new partner in Alex Boe (van Houten) as the two hunt down Tarzi and end up on a globe-trotting trek throughout Europe, as the search for Tarzi and Al-din dovetails, leading all parties to Spain where ISIS is hiding in plain sight under the auspices of a tomato distribution company, with a team of suicide bombers plotting to take out an Almeria arena during a bullfighting event.
Even with the closing credits rolling at the 82-minute mark (and misspelling Coster-Waldau's co-producer credit as "Nicolaj Coster-Waldau" after spelling his acting credit correctly), DOMINO is a laborious, convoluted slog that never manages to catch fire. Some of this is obviously due to it losing an hour of its running time and the effect that had on its storytelling rhythms and any kind of characterization or nuance, essentially reducing it to something that could pass as a lesser Jean-Claude Van Damme outing. But even taking that into consideration, this has the look and feel of the kind of cheap, made-for-cable TV series that you'd see in late-night syndication in the '90s. De Palma's bravura style is instantly recognizable even in his hired-gun gigs, but for all he brings to this, it may as well have been directed by Keoni Waxman or Brian A. Miller. PASSION was inessential De Palma but it was at least unmistakably the work of Brian De Palma. Only during the impending Almeria arena suicide bombing does that old magic finally make an appearance. Initially, it's such a relief and comfort to see something definitively "De Palma" that fans will feel giddy at the prospect of a classic De Palma set piece about to happen, but it's so truncated and sloppily pieced together that you're almost instantly back to crushing disappointment.
De Palma claims this wasn't his project and that it was given to him by the Danish producers who never had enough money and were constantly cutting corners, even calling it the most miserable experience he's ever had on a movie, and that's from the guy who made THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. For all the different sources of finance that went into getting this made, it looks incredibly cheap and shoddy. The CGI is total amateur hour, whether it s a bit of splatter just freezing and pausing in the air as a victim flails backwards (and no, it's not a "De Palma thing"), or an ISIS decapitation that looks like something out of an Asylum joint. A terrorist attack on a Netherlands film festival, seen via a split-screen livestream on the internet, is absolutely atrocious in both its bungled execution and in how it reveals that De Palma has no idea how livestreaming works. De Palma can't get anything right here, especially with one of Pino Donaggio's most uninspired scores that's not only distractingly intrusive but also generously cribs from Ravel's "Bolero" for the finale, which only serves to reiterate that FEMME FATALE will likely go down as De Palma's last great film. Yes, it's clear that DOMINO had a troubled production but what's here is a depressing reminder of so many great filmmakers before him who have just lost a step and aren't what they used to be. It's insulting that someone of De Palma's stature and influence has to schlep this far beneath his standards to land a gig. There's no shame in bowing out gracefully and going the elder statesman/lecture circuit route in one's emeritus years, but at the same time, a lot of people wrote off Paul Schrader after a long string of misfires and problem-plagued shoots and he came back hard with 2018's FIRST REFORMED. Here's to hoping De Palma has one more great movie in him, because DOMINO is a total embarrassment.
Brian De Palma and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on the set of DOMINO
BRIMSTONE (Netherlands/Germany/UK/ France/Belgium/Sweden - 2017) Written and directed by Martin Koolhoven. Cast: Guy Pearce, Dakota Fanning, Kit Harington, Carice Van Houten, Emilia Jones, Paul Anderson, William Houston, Ivy George, Bill Tangradi, Jack Roth, Jack Hollington, Vera Vitali, Carla Juri, Adrian Sparks, Naomi Battrick, Justin Salinger, Frederick Schmidt, Dan Van Husen. (R, 148 mins) Dutch filmmaker Martin Koolhoven's first film since his acclaimed 2008 WWII drama WINTER IN WARTIME is a western so relentlessly bleak, grim, and disturbing that it makes HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER look like a Gene Autry vehicle. Equal parts Quentin Tarantino, Lars von Trier, and Paul Thomas Anderson, the ambitious BRIMSTONE has moments of stunning atmosphere and remarkable audacity, scathingly critical of religion and patriarchy and those who use them to manipulate and subjugate. Told in four chapters (shades of von Trier and Tarantino) that unfold in reverse order (very Tarantino-like, but also perhaps a nod to star Guy Pearce being in MEMENTO), BRIMSTONE assembles the pieces of its puzzle--which later involves a couple of cast members taking on seemingly multiple roles--very deliberately and skillfully over its mammoth and often punishing two-and-a-half hours. As far as Guy Pearce westerns go, BRIMSTONE makes THE PROPOSITION seem like a feelgood crowd-pleaser by comparison. It's decidedly not for everyone and seems to be getting a more positive response in Europe than it is in the US, where its nonexistent commercial appeal has, not surprisingly, banished it to VOD with no push at all.
In the first chapter, titled "Revelation," mute frontier midwife Liz (Dakota Fanning) lives a happy life with her husband Eli (William Houston), their young daughter Sam (Ivy George), and Matthew (Jack Hollington), Eli's son with his late first wife. The family's life falls apart after Liz delivers a baby in church for a local woman when complications arose, forcing her to make a judgment call to save the mother instead of the baby. This makes her a pariah with the townsfolk, egged on by the recent arrival of a nameless Reverend (Pearce), who accuses Liz of playing God and whose presence upsets Liz for reasons that will become increasingly and tragically clear over the course of the film. In the second chapter, "Exodus," we're introduced to teenage Joanna (Emilia Jones), who's first seen wandering the desert in a state of distress before she falls in with Frank (Paul Anderson), owner of the local saloon/cathouse Frank's Inferno (in case it wasn't quite clear that they're all in Hell). Frank has the other women groom young Joanna for a life of prostitution and after a few years, the adult Joanna (Fanning) is one of the more popular girls at the Inferno, though they all live in fear of Frank, who often resorts to punishing those who misbehave with customers--Sally (Vera Vitali, daughter of longtime Stanley Kubrick associate Leon Vitali) is hanged by Frank's sheriff brother (Frederick Schmidt) after she kills a man who was attempting to rape young Joanna; and Elizabeth (Carla Juri) is subjected to eye-for-an-eye justice after she bites off the tongue of an abusive customer. A mysterious stranger (Pearce again) buys out the Inferno for the night. Joanna clearly recognizes him and things escalate when he chooses her over the other women, with the intent of making her pay for past misdeeds.
The third chapter is "Genesis," and it's here where BRIMSTONE's story threads begin to coalesce. To go into specifics beyond that would mean significant spoilers, but the events that unfold will also involve outlaws Samuel (Kit Harington of GAME OF THRONES) and Wolf (Jack Roth, Tim's lookalike son) and Samuel's attempt to rescue young Joanna (Jones makes a return appearance) from a physically and psychologically abusive situation that claims the life of her mother (Carice Van Houten, another GAME OF THRONES cast member) in a frontier settlement of Dutch immigrants lorded over by...you guessed it...a younger Reverend. The fourth chapter, "Retribution," brings things full circle back to the present, with Liz, Sam, and Matthew on the run from the Reverend, who's hellbent on killing her family as part of his obsessive quest for vengeance against Liz. The monstrous Reverend grows increasingly diabolical as the chapters take BRIMSTONE further back in time, with Pearce creating what could go down as the most astonishingly repellent villain of 2017. Whether he's forcing women to wear a medieval headgear (sort of a like CPAP chastity belt) to keep their mouths silent or singing hymns as he's salivating over the opportunity to restrain and whip young Sam and "make her a woman," Pearce will make your skin crawl as the pedophile Reverend. He waxes rhapsodic about how "young girls carry the scent of innocence...older women smell different," and uses religion and his position as a man of God as a means of control and for justifying his own perversions, abetted and emboldened by a devoted and subservient congregation that looks the other way and lets it happen. When asked to explain his transgressions, he simply says "I can do whatever I want."
Pearce is matched by Fanning, doing career-best work thus far in a role that was originally intended for Mia Wasikowska (Robert Pattinson was cast as Samuel until he and Wasikowska backed out during pre-production). Playing most of the film mute, Fanning has to convey a lot with facial expressions and sign language, but she's quietly powerful in a difficult role that sees her dragged through a gauntlet of emotions from start to finish. Her scenes with young George provide the few moments of warmth and humanity in an otherwise unrelenting barrage of abuse, violence, and horror. BRIMSTONE isn't the easiest watch--few films have so bluntly put children in such traumatic circumstances involving everything from sexual abuse to forced mercy-killing--and it can be as oppressive as von Trier at his most misanthropic. It's the kind of film that you'll either find completely alienating and off-putting or be drawn in and challenged by its frequent instances of brilliance, its fascinating story structure, and its willingness to go to some uncomfortably dark places. It's interesting to note that frequent Dario Argento collaborator Franco Ferrini (PHENOMENA, DEMONS, OPERA) is credited as "story consultant." Perhaps he came up with the memorable bit where Pearce's Reverend disembowels a guy and strangles him with his own intestines. Feel what you will about BRIMSTONE, but it gets your attention and provokes a reaction.
