The Screen Addict | Scott and Fuqua

Recently, I filled in a couple of blind spots I had suffered in the oeuvres of Tony Scott and Antoine Fuqua, two directors of – predominantly – Action films I greatly admire.

In Scott’s case, my blind spot was Domino (2005) – a film I had of course seen before, but had always considered a rare misfire for the filmmaker. The main reason for this was my confusion over the hyper-visualized style Scott had adopted during the period in which Domino was released. The extreme manipulation of both sight and sound felt like a relentless assault on my senses, and I didn’t know how to process this creative choice at the time.

The director had of course always been known for his kinetic visuals, but ever since Man on Fire (2004) – which I loved, for the record – Scott’s idiosyncrasies appeared to have shifted into overdrive. I call it his Stroboscopic Period.

Still, my personal motto applies here as well – time is the only critic of relevance. Aside from the fact that almost every Action director that came after him adopted or at the very least references Scott’s trailblazing techniques, Domino is simply a landmark film.

Made during the height of the Reality-TV boom from a script by Richard “Donnie Darko” Kelly, Domino shows us what could happen when network execs are not kept in check.

Incredibly, the character of Domino Harvey is 100% real. She was indeed the jaded daughter of British celebrities, who decided to give bounty hunting a go just to piss off mom and dad. An interesting detail to that story is that she was actually an acquaintance of Scott. The director had been developing Domino for more than a decade before the movie finally came together in 2005.

By far my favorite thing about Domino though, is that the project solidified Scott’s creative partnership with two of my favorite players – Mickey Rourke and Christopher Walken. Both actors had been in MoF the year before, and it is bittersweet to think about the many great films the trio could have gone on to make together, had it not been for Scott’s untimely and frankly heartbreaking death.

Sadly, the real Domino Harvey also passed too soon. The badass bounty hunter died of a fentanyl overdose in 2005, several months before the film about her life was released. While she makes a brief appearance during the end credits, it is unclear whether she ever got to see the finished product.

My blind spot in Fuqua’s filmography is a very peculiar one. I had always firmly believed that Bait (2000), starring Jaimie Foxx, was Fuqua’s feature-film debut as a director. I also remember very clearly The Replacement Killers (1998) being released, but for some reason the plot didn’t entice me at the time, so I more or less ignored and subsequently kind of forgot about it.

What I never put together though, is that the Mira Sorvino - Chow Yun-Fat starrer was actually the film that started Fuqua’s feature-film run. Because I am a huge admirer of his work – not to mention a completist collector – I obviously had to immediately correct this omission in my Fuqua section.

Produced – among others – by Asian Action-Maestro John Woo and later Paramount chief Brad Grey, TRK had plenty of odd-coupled muscle behind the camera. Rumor has it that the production was anything but a smooth ride, so that could be an explanation for this mixed bag of meddlers.

It’s fun to see Fuqua’s affinity for low sun on wet streets burgeoning in TRK – it’s one of the utterly atmospheric director-trademarks that he reused to great effect in Training Day (2001).

Look, any movie that features Til Schweiger and Danny Trejo as leather-clad assassins, is awesome in my book. Moreover, any director that quite clearly homages Ridley Scott and Blade Runner (1982) for the bad guy’s death scene, can forever count on me to buy a ticket for his films.

Solid recommendations, both of ‘em.

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Twitter (X): Robin Logjes | The Screen Addict