Romeo Is Bleeding

Big city police officers with basement-filth addictions will identify with much of this masterpiece. I did.

"Jack" has a problem; Money and Sex. When he's not getting enough of one, he seeks way too much of the other. Jack had big dreams. And, he was doing something about those dreams. Everything was going great, until one day...everything started going wrong. You see, there's not much future in playing four sides against the middle. Especially when the four sides include a mobster, an opposing mobster (a female sex-goddess), a beautiful supporting loving wife, and a super-hot luscious girlfriend. Jack is not just bleeding...he's hemorraging!

If you're a police officer, this In-Service Training Film is a requirement! WARNING: HAVE DRINK IN HAND WHEN VIEWING

Like Jack says, "Hell...is when you should have walked away, and didn't". Good Luck!

The ultimate Gary Oldman Film Noir! If you want to see a great thriller that makes you sit on the edge of your seat with out being overly gory, check this movie out!

Big city cop in "It", up to here! Great story and cinematography! Excellent soundtrack, and the weirdest cop story I've ever seen. I have seen it, I don't know how many times, but I never tire of it.

Everyone does a fine job of acting and Lena Olin is one of the most lethal women in a movie I've ever seen. She should been cast as a killer in a "Bond" film by now.

Oldman is great with his New York accent, and makes you feel the pain he feels when he loses a toe, or should I say, when it's taken from him. I won't say how, but he's got some bad friends in low places.

It's a love story that gets all f***ed up. But what an incredible ride through the film. He's up and when he comes down, it's crash and burn all over the place.

Rent it, buy it, just see it. The DVD is here finally, wish there was a commentary on it, but that's how it goes. Ciao 4 now xoxox

Peter Medak's Romeo Is Bleeding is one of the most overlooked crime films of the 90's. It's a downbeat, pitch black, simmering sociopathic neo noir filled to the brim with excellent character actors and actresses inhabiting various delicious cop, gangster and femme fatale roles. It has a lyrical, moody poetry to it it, evoking the noir flicks of the 40's albeit with a decidedly modern, violent and demoralizing bite to it. Gary Oldman, in a monumentally underrated performance, plays Jack Grimaldi, a sleaze bag cop attempting to play the Police force, the Feds and the mob against each other in order to make obscene amounts of dirty money for himself. He's a two timing, amoral asshole of a protagonist, but Oldman plays him in a stray dog, sheepish way that you just can't help root for him, and feel like an outlaw doing so. Of course his scheme falls apart (as all schemes like this do, in movie land) spectacularly so, at the hands of Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin) a tyrannical, deranged Russian contract killer with a penchant for gleeful brutality and unhinged violence. Olin is a wonder in the role, a grinning black velvet spider and a source of constant nightmares for Jack, as well as the audience. The film has a darkly comic, almost fairy tale like quality to it, a sense of inevitable karmic catastrophe at the hands of the mob and the law. Oldman mournfully narrates the proceedings from a hazy desert enclave that may or may not just be a dream, and yearns for a second chance. Medal directs with steely, melodramatic precision. Juliette Lewis does her early 90's ditzy thing to perfection, Annabella Sciorra is sweet as Jack's poor wife, the only sympathetic character in the whole deal, Roy Scheider feels a bit miscast as the vengeful mob boss, but Ron Perlman, Michael Wincott, Will Patton, James Chromwell, David Proval and Dennis Farina are top notch in welcome cameos. I feel like this script alone should have gotten a lot more attention, let alone the simply stunning, beautiful film that it has turned into. Anyone who's a fan of crime films, noir, good story lines, and this troupe of actors (and really, how can you not be, just look at this cast!!) will love this.

Every time its May 1 or December 1, I think of this movie. It means something, it must be good to leave that kind of impression on me. When a movie sticks in your mind, even if its just one quote, for so long after you have seen it (and the last time I saw it was 3 or 4 years ago) it means it can't be bad. So thats one thing. Another thing is that it has absolutely top notch cast. Gary Oldman, Lena Olin, Michael Wincott, Juliette Lewis, Annabella Sciorra, Will Patton and James Cromwell-all serious and talented actors. And the story is very interesting too. I mean you have this so-flawed main character who is at the same time very human and even sympathetic in a way that he's lost, he can't really help all the mess he's got himself in. It is a very human character, no? And in the end he does the right thing, but is it too late? Seems so. This movie is just about that-how we sometimes don't wake up and see the light until we have lost everything that was dear to us.

What is the flaw with the movie? Maybe its that it didn't perhaps get everything it could from such an interesting storyline. I mean, corrupt cop who's in the mafia's pocket and cheats on his wife yet loves her, then gets caught in the dangerous game with a deadly Russian criminal who is a man eater at the same time...well, maybe not after all. Its a movie that succeeds in pulling it all together rather well and at the same time making us stay on the edge of our seat to see whats gonna happen next. Not many American modern movies have done that. I can mention one that came out the same year as this one, Carlito's Way. But that is a different story and genre really. That was a gangster film noir with a love story thrown in, this is both a film noir and a love story. Thats why the title is ROMEO is Bleeding.

Gary Oldman makes one of his strongest performances and the same can perhaps be said for Olin, who is very convincing and menacing in her part as the deadly seductress whose only aim is to devour everything in her path. The ending leaves us in doubt to what really happened, there is no typical Hollywood ending and thats good. It again mirrors how things really go in life as Jack is left on his own waiting anxiously for his wife but nobody, not even he, knows if he will ever see her again. And thats art imitating life.

I happened to stumble on this one night. What a mesmerizing movie! Gary Oldman is terrific as a corrupt Detective. You get the feeling from this guy that he was probably once a young, idealistic, honest cop, who has just been slowly manipulated, and seduced by the seaminess, the money, the sex, the despair.

How this guy could stray from Annabella Sciorra is beyond me, but that's another story.

What you see is this guy's whole life crumble down around him, due to his poor choices, his dishonesty, and his inability to control his cravings. Just about everything that could go wrong does, and his entire life, everything he thought he was working for, virtually blows up in his face.

To finally see, and realize all he's lost is played out very well by Oldman. A very well-done, well-acted film.