Love and loss find a home in ‘Elizabethtown’

Attractive people struggling with love and loss in a haze of sentimentality set to a classic rock soundtrack are the expected elements of any film by Cameron Crowe (“Almost Famous,” “Jerry Maguire”). His latest offering, “Elizabethtown,” certainly contains these Crowe prerequisites, but it is nonetheless an effective treatise on community and family.

Orlando Bloom stars as Drew Baylor, a whiz kid designer for a Nike-like shoe company who is responsible for the biggest flop in the company’s history. As Drew’s boss, Phil (Alec Baldwin), points out, the loss is so huge it can correctly be rounded up to a billion. Drew is so distraught he goes home, throws his belongings out in the street and rigs his exercise bike to stab him to death.

Before he can actually go through with his imaginative suicide attempt, Drew receives a call from his sister, Heather (Judy Greer), informing him his father, Mitch (Tom Devitt), has died suddenly in Kentucky. Heather tells him his mother, Hollie (Susan Sarandon), is completely distraught, and it is up to Drew to take the red-eye to Elizabethtown, Ky., to bring his father’s remains back home.

With his father’s favorite blue suit in tow, Drew boards the plane, where he turns out to be the only passenger. The flight attendant is a relentlessly cheerful motormouth named Claire (Kirsten Dunst), who engages him in conversation despite his wish to be left alone. On the way out of the plane, she gives him directions to Elizabethtown on a card that also has her phone number.

When Drew arrives in Elizabethtown in his rented car, he finds the entire town in mourning for his father -- a favorite native son. Accompanying his father to his hometown was something Drew had always talked about but never done.

Accordingly, the family is a gaggle of strangers who are mourning his father with more passion than he can muster. The family wants to bury Mitch in a plot they have owned for more than 200 years with all the pomp and circumstance they can afford. Drew’s mother wants his father cremated, after which Drew is to take the remains home.

Checking into a hotel in nearby Louisville, Drew, at his wit’s end, reaches out via his cellphone. He is unable to contact his sister or mother, and when he reaches his girlfriend, she breaks up with him. Desperate for a friendly voice, Drew calls Claire and leaves a voicemail. She eventually calls him back, and they talk for the entire night.

Drew and Claire are both good people who have never connected with anyone on a meaningful level. Drew and his father had drifted apart as they both put their lives into their work. Claire’s happy façade hides a history of minor disappointments, including that none of her significant others have put her first in their lives.

Bloom and Dunst are eminently likable in this film, and one really hopes they will end up together. The biggest obstacle is that neither of them needs another failure at this point in their lives, and it may be better to simply keep matters on a friendship basis.

“Elizabethtown” is about the importance of family and the temporary and uncertain nature of life. Good intentions don’t bring happiness; one has to engage friends and family. “Elizabethtown” effectively tugs at the heartstrings, even if it does meander into overly sentimental territory once in a while.

As usual, Crowe has put together some fairly obscure but moving classic rock for the soundtrack. The film is very well cast. The residents of Elizabethtown are definitely country folk but are not portrayed as buffoons, an unusual occurrence in a mainstream film. Sarandon has a brief but key scene where she steals the show. Finally, a musical tribute to Mitch featuring “Freebird” goes comically and horribly wrong.

“Elizabethtown” is a bit long at two hours, but it never really lags. Sweet and funny, “Elizabethtown” is a bit of fluff with a more serious message ladled in.

* VAN NOVACK, 50, is the director of institutional research at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife Elizabeth.

Everything falls in place in ‘Domino’

When Hollywood tells you a movie is based on a true story, it’s a bit like having the White House tell you that no one has committed a crime. You immediately know they’re lying; it’s just a question of how big of a lie they’re telling.

Saying that “Domino” is based on the true story of the life of Domino Harvey -- the legendary fashion model turned L.A. bounty hunter -- is a real whopper.

Then again, who cares? This movie is so much fun that watching it repeatedly will do permanent damage to your brain cells. It’s not a true story, but it’s a wild ride full of explosions, gunfire and absurdly funny plot twists that no one can anticipate.

Visually, “Domino” is a surrealistic roller coaster of psychedelic cross-cuts and dizzying camera angles. This would all be nothing more than Tarantino-wannabe stylistic kitsch if the rest of the movie wasn’t strong enough to stand up to it. That strength comes from a cast that is dripping with attitude and perfect for their roles.

Keira Knightley is sexy and nimble as Domino Harvey, the poor little rich girl with drop-dead gorgeous looks and a fierce addiction to adrenaline. In real life, Domino was the daughter of actor Laurence Harvey (“The Manchurian Candidate”) and Vogue supermodel Paulene Stone. As a child, she preferred nunchucks to Barbie dolls. Her main talent at school was getting expelled. She grew up to become the world’s most famous female bounty hunter.

Knightley’s eyes tell the story of a woman who was just as likely to punch your lights out as she was to sleep with you.

Her relationship with veteran bounty hunter Ed Mosby (Mickey Rourke) is a natural fit. Rourke fills the screen as the gritty, scarred warrior who’s seen and done it all at least twice. He’s the beast who contrasts with Knightley’s beauty, and he plays this role as if it were written just for him. His character is loosely based on the real life bounty hunter Zeke Unger, who partnered with the real Domino and worked with her as a consultant on this film.

Mo’Nique Imes-Jackson of “Showtime at the Apollo” fame appears as Department of Motor Vehicles goddess Lateesha Rodriguez, and she enhances her reputation as a pure scene-stealer. Her scene as a Jerry Springer guest is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in years.

Director Tony Scott’s attention to detail in casting borders on fanatical. For some action that involves a standoff with a gang in East Los Angeles, he hired real members of L.A.’s notorious 18th Street gang. The kicker is that somewhere in L.A. is a gangbanger who spent an afternoon getting paid to get lap dances from a virtually nude Keira Knightley. This is further proof that life is cruel and unjust.

Other standouts include Edgar Ramirez as the bounty hunter Choco, Delroy Lindo as bail bondsman Claremont Williams, Lucy Liu as a police interrogator, Jacqueline Bisset as Domino’s mother, and Christopher Walken as a TV producer.

When you have music legend Tom Waits appearing as a wandering holy man, you’ve got a movie that’s destined to have a permanent cult following.

After you peel away all of the stylistic imagery, “Domino” is an action movie about a casino robbery and the three bounty hunters who are paid to capture the bad guys and return the money. Saying anything more is giving away too much information about a plot that’s fun to watch unfold. It’s all told in flashbacks and is interspersed with the mostly true story of Domino’s childhood.

There’s a bit of an argument going on about the way this movie doesn’t represent the real life and times of the late Domino Harvey and whether she actually approved of the making of this film. The movie’s credits end with a shot of the real Domino smiling at the camera like the cat who ate the canary.

She was never a slave to the truth when she told people her life story. She did assist throughout the film’s production, and, by most accounts, enjoyed being a part of the making of this movie.

Domino died over the summer from an overdose despite having hired people to stay around her to keep her from using drugs. On the one hand, dying young and beautiful ensures her status as a legend. On the other hand, she’s dead, so it’s not as if she gets to enjoy any of her newfound status.

I’d love to see a documentary made about her life, but this bit of fiction using her as a lead character is still a great evening at the movies.

* JIM ERWIN, 40, is a technical writer and computer trainer.

20051020h0stonke(LA)20051020iol5r4knNEAL PRESTON(LA)Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom star in the film “Elizabethtown.”20051020h03bw3ke(LA)