Romeo Is Bleeding (1994)

Blood, bullets and black comedy feature strongly in this action-packed slice of Nineties noir that entertains by taking a whole series of typical film noir ingredients and hyping them up to the max. Its story about the downfall of a New York City cop is told in flashback with the man himself providing the hardboiled narration. Despite this, he never becomes a sympathetic character because he's entirely self-centred, driven by greed and lust and habitually betrays everyone who puts any trust in him. Through his own actions, he charts the course of his own journey to hell which suddenly goes into overdrive from the moment that he meets one of the most monstrous femmes fatales imaginable.NYPD Detective Jack Grimaldi (Gary Oldman) is a guy with big dreams who envies the lifestyles of the mobsters that he keeps under surveillance in his day-to-day work and supplements his meagre earnings by acting as an informant for local Mob boss Don Falcone (Roy Scheider). After tipping Falcone off about the whereabouts of Nick Gazzara (Dennis Farina), a gangster who, under the witness protection program, had volunteered to give evidence, Gazzara is assassinated by Russian hit-woman Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin) who also kills the Feds who were responsible for guarding the witness.Mona is soon arrested and Jack is instructed to take her to a safe-house from where she'll be collected by FBI agents. At the safe-house , she uses seduction as a weapon to quickly assert her dominance over the weak-willed cop and he's subsequently found in a very compromising position when the FBI men arrive.Jack, a serial womaniser who'd been nicknamed "Romeo" by his colleagues, is unfaithful to his supportive wife Natalie (Annabella Sciorra) and takes his good-natured mistress Sheri (Juliette Lewis) for granted despite the fact that she'd do absolutely anything for him. He's also addicted to "feeding the hole" in his back yard where he keeps the considerable amount of cash that he'd been paid by Falcone and thinks that he's doing really well until Falcone suddenly wants him to kill Mona and isn't prepared to take "no" for an answer. The mayhem that follows then becomes very violent, not always credible and full of surprises.One of the best things about this movie is its tremendous cast which features people of the calibre of Dennis Farina, Juliette Lewis and Annabella Sciorra in supporting roles and Roy Scheider who's exceptionally good as the intimidating Falcone. Gary Oldman is perfect in a part that could almost have been written for him and Lena Olin seems to thoroughly enjoy portraying all the antics of her ruthless, sadistic and completely unhinged femme fatale."Romeo Is Bleeding", with its stylish direction, top-class cinematography and atmospheric score is often lurid, sensational and over-the-top but its comic-book style is perfectly suited to the nature of its characters and its fast-moving plot.

which strictly speaking should not be stealable in the first place.I mean, on the surface this is one of those oddball in-color "film noire" gangstery films which Hollywood has become so fond of recently.It has an especially clever script and reminds me in subtle ways of the many cross-arcs in Lucky Number Slevin.The two stars Gary Oldman and Lena Olin both do not usually get the chance to do a star turn, they are both very under-used as primary characters, and that should be the end of the review.But it is not. Olin gives an extraordinary performance, part sensuality, part evil genius, part crazy. By the end of the film she makes Kevin Spacey look like a chartered accountant.Also a nice cautionary tale on letting your reach exceed your grasp.Extraordinary. Highly recommended.

I was looking at blurays/dvds at Carrefour a few days ago (European version of Walmart) and I saw the DVD of Romeo Is Bleeding in the cheap DVD section. Generally these are crap films which nobody buys. It was 5.99 TL (Turkish liras). I looked at the back cover and saw that Gary Oldman, whom I think is one of the most underrated actors ever, starred in the film. I consider him to be very talented. I bought the film thinking it might be good and it was not only good, it was actually amazing. The cinematography was beautiful, Oldman and Olin were very good in their roles, the rest of the cast was also good though I think James Cromwell could have a bigger part. The storyline was good and I was not bored for a second, I was interested in what was going to happen next throughout the movie so the pacing was well adjusted.The film is a film noir set in the 90s with a sort of New York we have not seen before. Some people might claim the psycho woman character was unrealistic but I do not think so, many criminals are not like normal people, and she's a prime example.In short, this is one of the most unknown great films that can be bought for a low price. It is underrated and not known by many people, but it is still a classic crime thriller.

If you're looking for realism and seriousness don't watch it. Always complaining and whining about over-acting don't watch this. Go see Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant instead if you can handle the realism in that movie at least, has a bit of over-acting too though.Gary Oldman, Lena Olin and Roy Scheider are absolutely brilliant and super-cool in this movie.Beautiful entertaining piece of artwork. Extremely violent and very sexy.I've read a few negative reviews about this movie. I suppose those people can't relate to this. Maybe they never crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed and never as a result of this experienced the inescapable downward spiral leading straight to oblivion. Lucky them.