Domino 2005 is Tony-Scott-hem!

  Blender Dumbass
October 20, 2025

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#Domino #TonyScott #MichaelBay #movies #film #review #cinemastodon

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Tony Scott appeared to be trying to outgrow Michael Bay in the 2000s. In 2001 he does Spy Game which is a kind of slightly bayhem-ish movie. Where Tony Scott is no longer trying to make pretty pictures, but is trying to go for ultimate intensity. His Enemy of the State before that, is still more of a classic Tony Scott. While making Spy Game his brother Ridley Scott was making Black Hawk Down while Michael Bay was making Pearl Harbor. While Pearl Harbor has the Bay's explosions and stuff, the colors of the film still look relatively normal. Only his next film ( 2003 Bay Boys II ) go crazy with colors. Spy Game, while being more energetic in directing and editing department, than even Enemy of the State still looks like a normal movie, albeit it is a little desaturated. But Black Hawk Down ( probably in attempt of messing with Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan ) is super moody, with extreme contrast and intense colors. A thing that Michael Bay tries to replicate right away for Bad Boys II and then Tony Scott also replicated for Man on Fire in 2004. And then on Domino in 2005, Tony Scott goes even harder with the style. While Bay is doing roughly the same thing in his own way in The Island.

When talking about Tony Scott Quentin Tarantino points out a similarity between Scott and Bay. Tarantino worked with both Scott and Bay under Jerry Bruckheimer in the 90s. He was a dialogue coach on both Crimson Tide by Tony Scott and The Rock by Michael Bay. So he knows both of them. And knows how one is trying ( or tried ) to copy the other.

It seems like from the things Tarantino says, that Tarantino doesn't really like Michael Bay, while he really loves Tony Scott. But to be frank, I think Tarantino is making a mistake. In my opinion ( which starts to be a sort of almost mainstream opinion. As in, some film scholars do agree with me on that ) Michael Bay is a proper auteur filmmaker. A film-related YouTuber personality Patrick (H) Willems, has a merch mugs that says "Michael Bay has two movies in the Criterion Collection". Which is true.

I do believe Tarantino isn't thinking Michael Bay is a totally crazy motherfucker because Tarantino cast Julia Butters right after Michael Bay worked with her. And Tarantino made a big deal not to be an ageist to her, and prominently feature her in trailers, and posters and even interviews of the movie. At the very least Tarantino must have liked Bay's 13 Hours.

In any case, back to Domino. The movie, at least in my opinion, having just seen it, is great. But I kind of see why the rating is so low. The film only got 18% Rotten Tomatoes score. I think Bay and Scott where trying outdo each other. Michael Bay with his Bad Boys II went completely into his own Bayhem!. Which probably intensified Scott's Man on Fire to an extent that it is arguably more Bayhem! than Bad Boys II. And then Domino goes even harder with this Tony-Scott-hem! approach.

It looks like the two motherfuckers are measuring their pipis. Who can make the craziest, most intense feeling of Adrenalin in a movie. And yet with all the similarities I see a lot of practical differences between the two directors approaches to filming their stuff. Which kind of seems like Michael Bay is a fork of Tony Scott. And by 2005, with Domino and The Island they were pretty much doing their own respective things.

I think the following thing must have happened. If you look at the early Bay movies and the early Tony Scott movies, you can see that Scott in the early days was more precise and calculated. Almost like his brother Ridley. But then two things happened. Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay. Spielberg is quite precise. His camera work is incredibly perfect. I mean, there is a reason I was comparing everybody to Spielberg in my early reviews on this website. You can kind of see a quality in a director by comparing them to Spielberg. But Spielberg did Saving Private Ryan where camera shake and disorientation was a big part of the intensity of the movie.

Michael Bay started his cinematic journey in the early 80s as a teenage boy who had some work done with managing the prints of the storyboards for Spielberg's first Indiana Jones movie. Michael Bay read those storyboards. And he didn't really get them, until he saw the final movie, and got them. This was his introduction to directing. He literally learned from Spielberg's storyboards.

Spielberg made Indiana Jones as a way to save his image, when it comes to being a reliable film-maker. Nobody doubted Spielberg's ability to make a good movie. But people started doubting his ability to make a movie on a budget. Jaws famously was a nightmare shoot that went over budget. Close Encounters went over budget. And 1941 was the most expensive movie ever made at the time, that in the same time, was kind of a disappointment. So Spielberg needed a cinematic rehab. He needed to make a cheaper movie and show that he can do that on budget and on schedule. And his friend George Lucas provided him with the project of Indiana Jones. Where Michael Bay was present, behind the scenes.

George's task, being a producer on the picture, was to remind Steven about the importance of making the movie on budget and on schedule. Probably bringing 1941 all the time, while doing so. And Michael Bay was kind of, sort of, present. In my review of 1941 I observe that the movie feels like a Michael Bay parody of sorts. The film is insanely explosive, so to speak. Maybe that is why Bay, at first, didn't get the storyboards. They had less explosions from the last movie.

It is funny, but apart from Bay another teenage boy working around Steven at the time was J. J. Abrams, who even worked with Bay on Amrageddon. And who I argue is a good mixture between Bay's and Spielberg's styles. He made a movie called Super 8 in 2011. And there you even get a fictionalized version of Michael Bay as one of the kids characters. Cary ( played by Ryan Lee ) is an explosions maniac. A kid who always walks around with a backpack full of little fire-hazards. And who likes to set everything on fire all the time. Michael Bay as a kid, I suppose.

So Michael Bay goes in the footsteps of the Scott brothers. He starts directing commercials and music videos. During that time, he probably obsesses with one of the Scott bothers, Tony. If we go back to the analogy from Tarantino, Tarantino claims that Scott was the commercial hack half of the Scott brothers, in the 90s. Nobody were cool, liking Tony Scott movies. But you would be very hip, liking Ridley Scott movies. Tarantino thinks it is a total bullcrap, because Tony was really good at making those commercial as hell action films.

And so it is 1995 and Michael Bay appears out of nowhere with the first Bad Boys which pretty much parodies the style of Tony Scott. At first Scott doesn't give a damn. But then Bay makes movie after movie. And most importantly success after success. And so in 2001, when all 3 of them are making their next big projects. And Michael Bay makes the biggest Jerry Bruckheimer movie that year. Tony Scott decides to show Bay, who's the boss and tries to out-bayhem! Bay.

One of the things that Bay does in his early films, which lack from Tony Scott movies from the same time, is that Bay has a sort of ADHD energy to everything. Tony Scott would stop a scene and just make two people have a smart conversation. But Bay would shoot even that like it is an action scene. By 2003 with Bad Boys II Bay had gone completely insane. Some scenes in the movie aren't even scenes, but Bayhem! montages, which lead to maybe 2 or 3 lines of dialogue spoken. While you have so much going on, it is utterly Bayhem!.

And so Scott goes harder with Man on Fire ( that, I would remind you, was almost directed by Michael Bay ). Man on Fire tries to be harder than Bad Boys II. And Domino even harder than that. The directing is bad shit crazy. The editing is bad shit crazy. Tony Scott is showing who's the boss.

But if you look at the two styles from the same era, like say Domino and The Island you can see that while Scott went bad shit crazy, he is still not quite doing Bayhem!. He is doing his own spin on it. It is as intense, or at times more intense. But it is not the same thing. For example, Bay likes his low camera shots looking up at people. Scott doesn't do that. Scott prefers long lenses and simpler camera moves, with frantic editing. Bay likes wider lenses and more expensive looking shots. Michael Bay is combining the techniques of Tony with something like the Techniques of James Cameron. While Tony is going bad shit crazy.

Both Bayhem! and Tony-Scott-hem! are similar styles. But they are distinct and distant from one another in detail. Both are cinematically designed to induce as much Adrenalin into the audience as possible. But while Tony Scott goes for every trick in the book, creating an avant-garde movie. Michael Bay does a very good job of not tripping the audience into thinking they are watching an avant-garde movie. While technically using very similar techniques.

For example, Tony would layer different takes ( or different times of the same take ) one over another, to show how the character feels tension. Michael Bay would achieve the same intensity by positioning the camera in just the right way. For example, in The Island there is a shot of the main character on the bike, during a chase scene, and the camera is pointed at the sun, through solid metal beams that go a million miles an hour pass the characters. So you have the lens-flare from the sun hit the camera with a pulse to increase visual noise, while still not making the movie avant-garde.

It doesn't mean the Bay is never going for crazy editing bullshit. His 6 Underground is full of crazy editing. But Bay always tries to ground the feeling in something that he could capture. While Tony Scott does it almost entirely with editing.

Tony later toned down this insane style for his next movie Déjà Vu. Where, while you still have the style present. It doesn't try to out-compete Michael Bay. And therefor critics got it. It wasn't a misunderstood movie. I believe by the time Tony did his last movie Unstoppable in 2010, he learned to use the camera a bit better, to mess with Bay. And you could see some rather nice camera-work in that film. With a wide-lens and everything. You could theorize, Bay had an influence on Scott.

Yeah... So this was me ranting about the style of Domino. But what about its substance? What is Domino? Well it is a feminist picture. You have the main character Domino Harvey ( based on a real woman Domino Harvey who was involved with the production and died before seeing the picture from drug overdose ). So Domino Harvey, played by Keira Knightley ( who worked on Bruckheimer's Pirate of the Carrebian movies ) is this super cool, mega-tough, ultra-trained, fucking-sexy, super-bitch of a character. Who's a modern day bounty hunter.

And we have an incomprehensibly fast moving, super-complex, non-linear plot about her life. Which ends in a Mexican standoff. And an Afghani Michael Bay character guy, blowing up the mafia. I mean, if you think it is hard to follow Michael Bay movies because he is thinking too fast. Tony is trying to outdo Bay even in this regard. The film moves faster than Oppenherimer.

Basically, this movie is Tony-Scott-hem!

Happy Hacking!!!

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  Troler c:0



I wonder what are the other directors with near identical style yet receiving radically different reception.


My early attempts at cinema resulted in borderline surrealism. Seems like I am not on track on becoming the next Tony Scott.


Without context, this excerpt it hilarious.


This technique was used by Vytautas Katkus in his The Visitor .


The student teaches the teacher.


You could say Oppenheimer is radio active

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