Romeo Is Bleeding (1994)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Excellent but underrated film

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The main character in the film 'Romeo is bleeding' is not at all an ideal person to deal with as he has too many bad qualities. He is a corrupt cop who is turning out to be a bad influence on his wife. No woman has been able to get emotional satisfaction from him as he has deceived all of them including his mistress as well as wife. As a film noir with plenty of comic touches, Romeo is bleeding begins with the protagonist explaining his downfall. It might sound to be a very ordinary description of a film noir but director Peter Medak has made his film interesting especially in the manner the story has been told. He brings the protagonist closer to his contacts in order to understand his motives. Although actresses Juliette Lewis and Annabella Sciorra have got limited lines for their secondary roles, they have managed to do their best to change their man. Finally, it is actress Lena Olin who get maximum amount of praise in her role as a femme fatale who is responsible for ruining everybody who oppose her. For his philandering ways, Gary Oldman was a perfect choice as a policeman cum romeo whose irresponsible actions bring about his downfall.

There are a lot of actors who made their initial claim to fame through their "dangerous" persona, Tim Roth, Nicolas Cage, Mickey Rourke, Jack Nicholson and in more recent years Colin Farrell, to which I say puh-leeze.Ladies and gents I give you Gary Oldman -True Romance, Leon, Immortal Beloved, even Air Force One, he plays a crazy better than almost anyone.In Romeo Is Bleeding Oldman is out-crazied by Lena Olin.Big time.Oldman plays Jack, a corrupt cop who takes money from organized crime by selling out informants, witnesses and such. He tells them where the guy is, they whack him. Jack also juggles a wife, a girlfriend and a roving eye, which leads him to get caught by the FBI trying to get it on with a Russian hitwoman he is supposed to be handing over, (enter Lena) as Mona.Mona gets away, the underworld (headed by Roy Scheider) is p****d, and tells Jack to finish the job personally, or else.Jack was already a little stressed but this tweaks it up a notch, what with his girlfriend and wife both threatening to leave, and when he finds Mona she counter offers with a payment to tell the bad guys that she has been killed, assuming by the time they work out they were duped she will have left the country.The basic lesson here is don't trust anyone, by the time Jack sorts himself out he has Mona and the mob trying to kill him, he loses a couple of toes to the latter at one stage, and over a few meetings works out than Mona is absolutely nuts, and will do anything necessary to get what she wants, and I mean anything.Everything about this film is just a bit off kilter, meaning that at times it can feel quite surreal. The tone is always kept dark and if anything it is perhaps a bit of an update on the traditional noir films of the early years of Hollywood, only with a twist.I did like this film, even though it took a while getting where it was going, I guess sometimes you can over-twist things. I have heard some people worship this film and place it right at the top of their all time lists, and they have every right to, though having seen it a couple times I just don't get it personally.What I put that down to is I think everyone has a phase where they decide what it is that they actually like, as opposed to what they think they should like, believe it or not some never work this out.This in large part explains Gwen Stefani's mainstream success.During the immediate period after you make your decision you upgrade anything a couple points, for me this caused me to elevate movies like "Tremors" and "Deep Cover", and I suppose for some "Romeo is Bleeding" is their example.Final Rating – 7 / 10. Watch if only Lena Olin going so far Over The Top that she creates a new level of overacting. (I call it "Lithgow-ing". ) If you liked this (or even if you didn't) try oneguyrambling.com

I really don't think this is a neo film noir masterpiece some would have you believe it is - it's messy, a little unbalanced and plods occasionally, but it does round up a remarkable cast, employs an inspired Mark Isham soundtrack to great effect and has its stellar moments, namely every time Lena Olin, the true engine of this film, is anywhere to be seen on screen, and for that reason only the movie is worth spending time on. She infuses all her scenes with energy which even Oldman has problems keeping pace with and effortlessly steals the entire film, directed to slightly overdo the grind-glass voiced Russian hitwoman Demarkov as a genuinely dangerous yet irresistible psycho bitch from hell. She pulls it off with great panache though and her performance is what you'll remember long after watching the film. Elsewhere, Oldman freaks out convincingly and by the book, Juliette Lewis pouts around in her underwear pulling her usual few faces before she is bumped off to oblivion, while Sciorra and Scheider leave their mark but end up underused in their episodes. An affectionate yet uneven tribute to film noir that occasionally loses its step and spreads itself a little too thin for comfort, but still definitely watchable.

Lena Olin's performance, no matter how cartoon-like, is memorable as the hit woman from hell. The movie itself is vicious, and extremely disjointed. For example, how did Roy Scheider suddenly and without explanation wind up in the trunk of Lena Olin's car? Another problem is Lena's miraculous recovery from severing her arm. A movie should be more than the sum of it's parts, which "Romeo is Bleeding" is not. There must be a story here somewhere, but from my viewpoint, the movie makes little sense. Ultimately it is this uneven and somewhat unbelievable storyline that sucks the film down to levels that are less than acceptable. "Romeo is Bleeding" never adds up. - MERK