Mercenaria

When I stumbled upon this 2024 action thriller titled "Dominique", I was intrigued. Sure, I had never heard about the movie, but there was just something about the cover that worked for me.

The storyline in the movie was pretty straightforward, sort of in the spirit of the action movies of the 1980s and 1990s, where it is one man, well in this case woman, against a large group of highly-trained professionals. I will say that writers Michael S. Ojeda and Oksana Orlan, with the latter also starring in the movie, actually put together an enjoyable and entertaining enough script. I was adequately entertained throughout the course of the 100 minutes that the movie ran for. Sure, the narrative was sort of predictable, up to the end, where director Michael S. Ojeda takes the movie and gives it a rather unforeseen twist. I liked that.

The acting performances in the movie were fair, but leading actress Oksana Orlan sort of put on a performances with a wooden face, showing little or no emotions. I hope that the character was written to be that way, otherwise it was a lousy acting performance. While I was not familiar with actors Maurice Compte and Sebastián Carvajal, they really spruced up the movie with their performances.

There is a good amount of action to supplement the rather basic and straightforward narrative, so that worked out well enough.

I have to say, though, that "Dominique" is a movie that certainly is watchable once, but it has absolutely zero replay vale to it. If you enjoy action thrillers, give director Michael S. Ojeda's 2024 movie "Dominique" a chance if you have the opportunity.

My rating of "Dominique" lands on a six out of ten stars.

This movie is as poignant as it is violent. The action will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time while you become attached to the characters. The director really pulled that off. It does leave you wanting to know a lot more about Dominique and her past. I assume this was done to make us want a sequel! The actress is great. Her anger is so genuine that you feel it too. The landscape looked so good on film that I now want to visit Colombia. There are pivotal action scenes that made me wonder how the filming was done so well because I doubt there were tons of effects or cgi. Definitely worth a second watch.

Action/violence on the level of a movie from the franchise of "taken" or "john wick." I expected it would be one hand on the popcorn, the other on the fast forward button. But no. The crooked cops, the burned out soldier of fortune, finding a cause worth risking her life. There are twists, you won't see coming.

Fun. Worth giving it a shot. 6.5. It drops a little because its obviously not a big budget, slick Hollywood production. That was a negative, but after 15 minutes, that ceasaes to be an issue. When it ended, I actually wondered if this could find its way to Dominique II? Probably not....but think of all the crappy movies that have seen a 2nd iteration.

Embroidered on the real drama of poor Colombians, this film bring some serious issues into question. It's half way between a B series banal and violent flick and a real tension filled, well done cinematic action movie. You may or may not want to watch it, but there's something else that must be noted: Oksana Orlan has a huge potential for dramatic roles. She is very expressive as an actress, it pays to have her in action movies but she can do so much more. The credibility of the story is forced beyond natural, in terms of physics, ballistics and tactical warfare, the human nature is touching the extremes but, hey, this is Columbia and all bets are off. Oksana stays somehow above all this and shines in a strange, promising way. Do they plan a sequel? She would better step on acting, with less shooting. I gave it a 6, in anticipation.

Nothing in the movie mattered. You should go do anything else with your time. Literally anything else would be better than the time spent watching this. From beginning to end, nothing changed. Still don't know anything about the protagonist. People died. Nobody cared

There was no character growth. There was no progress. There was nothing worth watching here.

Stories are supposed to have a point. There was no point to this, other than dead bodies. I guess if one counted the bodies hitting the floor maybe there was a tiny point. But that's it.

Did any of the dialog matter? Nope. Did any of the action matter, except to further the body count? Nope.

Pointless violence with pointless death.