At its best moments, “Romeo Is Bleeding” actually is the wickedly funny, violent black comedy it purports to be.
It’s a movie full of double-crosses, morbid humor and lip-licking performances by Gary Oldman and Lena Olin. If each scene had the warped energy of a handcuffed Olin’s acrobatic escape through a crashed car’s windshield, “Romeo Is Bleeding” could have rightfully earned the cult status it apparently desires.
But controlled anarchy is a difficult trick to pull off-especially when logic is flying out the window more often than bodies. What begins as a stylish, wryly satirical noir of the ’90s ends up like a mass of writhing serpents unsure of whose tail is whose.
The title’s “Romeo” is an adulterous, corrupt New York federal marshal named Jack Grimaldi (Oldman). His on-the-job skill with binoculars has led him to off-duty voyeurism and spying for mobsters; he locates sequestered witnesses for mob hitmen and receives a nice bundle of cash.
One such hit-which targets a mobster played with amusing vulgarity by Dennis Farina-results in the death of the protecting cops, as well. Jack’s conscience is tweaked, but he still can’t say no when the mob orders him to rub out the live-wire Russian hitwoman Mona Demarkov (Olin, a Swede on a worldwide tour of cinematic nationalities). He also can’t say no to her luscious come-ons.
Mona is one of those masters of crime and seduction most often found in silly spy movies. She’s a devious, madwoman sadist and, ooh, those legs! She’s a walking catalog for House of Bondage Lingerie-yes, the suit-jacket-and-garter-belt combo makes quite the statement.
Olin certainly has a ball with the role, flashing that fabulous smile, whipping around that glorious hair and showing a gleeful disregard for human life. A woman screenwriter, Hilary Henkin, devised the character-perhaps with some sort of irony in mind-yet Mona’s a classic, misogynistic male-fantasy figure. The movie’s message to scumball men is that you’d better quit your messing around before someone like Mona comes along to blow you away (if you don’t get to blow her away first).
As usual, the British Oldman brings a spark and twinkle to one of his growing repertoire of lowlifes. His droopy, liquid eyes manage to betray both the ridiculousness and sadness of this New Yawk mope’s situation as he’s squeezed among the mob, Mona, his wife, Natalie (Annabella Sciorra, who should be tired of playing the dumped-on woman by now), and his young mistress Sheri (Juliette Lewis reeling off another variation on her woman-child theme).
Still, Jack proves to be an awfully easy mark; intrigue shouldn’t be so reliant on protagonist stupidity. Then again, it’s not always clear what the filmmakers are thinking, either.
Director Peter Medak has explored the crime underworld recently (“The Krays”) and the warped-comedy world long ago (“The Ruling Class”). He nicely balances the tone here without letting the violence become overwhelming, yet he mines a fair amount of confusion as well.
People disappear and reappear in unlikely places with no explanation. A character gets shot in the leg yet can run full-force for the rest of the movie. Another chops her own arm off for a convoluted reason that ceases to matter almost immediately; in the meantime the replacement arm somehow becomes just an arm.
If these inconsistencies were played for comic effect, they might be excused. But “Romeo Is Bleeding” includes heavy shifts into melodrama territory, which requires us to be able to relate to the characters and situations on some consistently human level. Instead, the appropriate emotional reaction too often is “Huh?”
”ROMEO IS BLEEDING”
(STAR)(STAR) 1/2
Directed by Peter Medak; written by Hilary Henkin; photographed by Dariusz Wolski; edited by Walter Murch; production designed by Stuart Wurtzel; music by Mark Isham; produced by Henkin and Paul Webster. A Gramercy release; opens Friday at McClurg Court, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:55. MPAA rating: R. Violence, language, partial nudity, sexual content.
THE CAST
Jack……………………………………..Gary Oldman
Mona……………………………………….Lena Olin
Natalie……………………………..Annabella Sciorra
Sheri………………………………….Juliette Lewis
Don Falcone………………………………Roy Scheider
