Romeo Is Bleeding

An overlooked but entertaining blip in Gary Oldman's filmography, 1993's Romeo is Bleeding fizzled out between the popular Bram Stoker's Dracula and Leon: The Professional. Thematically, it's got more in common with the latter: Oldman portrays New York cop Jack Grimaldi, who's only slightly less vile than Leon's Norman Stansfield. He's got a one-sided marriage to Natalie (Annabella Sciorra), a doting mistress Sheri (Juliette Lewis), and ties to mob boss Don Falcone (Roy Scheider) that have resulted in $350,000 of payoff money buried in his backyard. But he's not completelyheartless: not only does Jack show hints of regret, he even cried during The Sound of Music once.

Jack's selfish, restless nature reveals itself at almost every turn, especially since he makes no real attempts to change until long after he's in over his head. The catalyst for Jack's well-earned undoing is one Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin), a seductive mob assassin who's transported by Jack to a safe house with predicable results. It doesn't take long for her to literally leave our anti-hero with his pants down, ramping up the tension early and establishing Mona as a major threat to just about anyone who crosses her path. Romeo is Bleeding paints the formidable femme fatale one stroke away from a female Terminator: she's almost always one step ahead, cheats death multiple times, and toys with her male prey, wearing a smile on her face and little else. It's a bold tactic for an extremely bold movie: one that goes so far over the top at times that it's difficult to fathom if we're meant to take everything seriously.

Yet Oldman, Olin, the supporting cast, and director Peter Medak aren't here to crack many jokes, which makes Romeo is Bleeding a close cousin to pulpy, neo-noir efforts like Sin City (whose source material predates Romeo is Bleedingby two years). But really, you could substitute almost any classic noir as a template for the film's twisting plot and downbeat atmosphere, even without its hard-nosed narration and jazzy score. Like Sin City, there's just more sex and violence to remind us how deep Jack's rabbit hole really goes, especially since he's in league with two imposing forces (Mona and Don Falcone) that actually make him slightly sympathetic in comparison. Not surprisingly, things don't work out for Jack in the end: the lesser of three evils prevails but just barely, left to stew in his own juices as a bitter blend of karmic justice and full-circle flashback. It's a wild and entertaining ride, to be sure...but not one without its fair share of bumps along the way, and one you probably won't revisit on a regular basis.

Still, there's enough here to warrant another look at this critical and commercial misfire. The world of 1993 was likely turned off by the film's more graphic events and characters, which have long since been one-upped on network TV and the big screen countless times over. That doesn't make Romeo is Bleeding any less ugly on several occasions, it just makes it easier to see what the film offers behind all that shock value