Romeo Is Bleeding is a 1993 darkly comic police story starring Gary Oldman and Lena Olin. The film's title was taken from a Tom Waits song. Oldman plays a bad cop on the take whose actions finally catch up with him. Olin is Mona, a murderous Russian hit woman. Despite featuring established stars (Oldman had appeared in the starring role of Francis Ford Coppola-directed blockbuster Dracula only a year prior), the film failed to make a significant impact at the box office, and received a generally unenthusiastic reaction from critics. In recent years, however, the film has gained a cult following despite its initially lackluster reception.[1]
Plot
Jack Grimaldi (Gary Oldman) is a dirty cop who does favors for the Mafia in exchange for large fees. He has a loving wife, Natalie (Annabella Sciorra), and an adoring mistress, Sheri (Juliette Lewis). He thinks he has it all, until both the cops and mob are outwitted by a vicious Russian mob assassin named Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin).
The head of the Italian mob, Don Falcone (Roy Scheider) orders the cop to deal with Demarkov or face dire consequences. Jack is unable to kill Demarkov. Soon Falcone becomes disappointed in Jack's ineptness and orders one of Jack's toes removed. Seriously injured due to the amputation and realizing that he has endangered his wife and mistress, Jack instructs his wife to leave the city immediately, giving her money and instructions where to meet him out West when the time is right. Jack also ends his affair with his mistress and puts her on a train out of the city.
Jack tries to hunt Demarkov but soon realizes that he is putty in her hands. Jack is attracted to her sexually and no match for her professionally. Mona offers to pay Jack to help her eliminate Falcone and fake her own death. Although he obtains phony papers for her, she refuses to pay and attempts to strangle him; he shoots and seriously wounds her, then tries to drive away with her handcuffed in the back seat. Mona escapes by hooking her legs around his neck, causing him to crash the car, and then slithering out over the front seat and through the shattered windshield without ever freeing her hands. Mona lures Jack to an abandoned warehouse, where he attempts to kill her but manages to shoot Sheri instead. Mona fixes the corpse so as to suggest that it was she, and not Sheri, who died (her scheme involves severing her own arm and substituting it for Sheri's). Mona handcuffs Jack to the bed and has her way with him in menacing S&M gear--but only after unbuckling her new prosthetic arm, her last concession to conventional appearances. Having tricked Jack into killing his mistress, Demarkov then forces him to kill Don Falcone, even after losing the use of her arm and having it replaced with a prosthetic. In the end, Demarkov turns Jack into the police, his former associates, and cops a plea deal that will indict Jack for the multiple murders that she tricked Jack into doing.
The police arrange a final confrontation between Jack and Demarkov at the courthouse, as he is heading in and she is heading out. Before she leaves, she threatens to kill both Jack and his wife. Thinking he has nothing to lose, and desperate to save the only thing good in his life, Jack grabs a gun from the ankle holster of one of his fellow officers and shoots her dead. Jack turns the gun on himself, only to discover that the revolver is empty. Instead of being sent to prison for the murder, he is given a commendation. This frees Jack to begin his new life in a small, remote town. He waits at the appointed time and place for Natalie to return to him, but her forgiveness is only in his mind.
Reception
Despite the central performances by Oldman and Olin being generally well received, the film met with unenthusiastic reviews from most critics, garnering only a 24% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[2] Of Rotten Tomatoes' top critics, none offered a positive review. Roger Ebert called the film "an exercise in overwrought style and overwritten melodrama, and proof that a great cast cannot save a film from self-destruction," while Todd McCarthy opined: "This heavy dose of ultra-violent neo-noir gives Gary Oldman a face-first trip through the gutter that would make Mickey Rourke drool, but the far-fetched plotting eventually goes so far over the top that pic flirts with inventing a new genre of film noir camp." Janet Maslin said of the film: "For all its promise, and for all the brittle beauty of Dariusz Wolski's cinematography, "Romeo Is Bleeding" eventually collapses under the weight of its violent affectations." Bon Jovi recorded the song Always for the film, but withheld the song after the band was given a preview screening and was not satisfied with it.[3]
The film failed to make a significant impact at the box office, grossing only $3.6 million worldwide[4] on a $10 million budget.[5]
Despite the film's initially lackluster reception, it has since gained a cult following.[1]
Cast
External links
