Killer

Bulletproof Heart (1994)

This wears its film noir visuals on its sleeve and even there, in the one clear intention by the filmmakers, it holds back. For one reason, it's in color, but not the noir intense color you might expect in a modern iteration, but a dull and workaday visual approach with grey blacks and soft edges. Too bad, because the visuals were the one hope for making this thing work.

The idea is promising--a woman knows she is going to be killed by a hired killer, and she seduces the killer(s) and avoids her death, at least at first (not to give away the end). But that is the entire plot idea, totally, so for an hour and a half we slowly (slowly) get there. There is a lot of "soft porn" as we go, and not very good either (not advancing the plot and not for its own sake, whatever soft porn is supposed to be doing in a movie in the first place). The script has shades of the clipped dialog and indifference lead character of noir, but maybe the comparison to great films of the past isn't helping appreciate this one.

The director, Mark Malone, has a series of five star movies to his name (five out of ten) except his last one, which gets three. This is his first, and it feels like it, with some clumsy breaks in the narrative flow that feel like film school tricks. The writing is painful, the editing lazy.

There are better low budget crime and suspense films to cut your teeth on.

Although just a decade ago, Anthony LaPaglia was a wild guy in movies, not the subdued leader of the hit TV program "Without A Trace." He usually played very profane guys, too. That's certainly the case here in this film which I've always seen labeled "Bulletproof Heart," (not "Killer").

Actually, all four lead actors in this movie were interesting: assassin LaPaglia, love-sex- interest Mimi Rogers, comedians Matt Craven and Peter Boyle. The latter two play comedian-types, I should say. Craven is particularly funny in this movie. Rogers is here mainly to show off her huge breasts. She shows them off particularly in a bondage-type scene that is a bit sick. (This movie isn't exactly The Sound Of Music, morally-speaking. It's pretty sleazy.)

The film has a good mixture of drama, humor, sex, violence and suspense. However, it also is a good example of Hollywood's depravity, pagan views and fatalistic viewpoints. Seeing more and more of that with my second and third viewing of this , my rating went lower and lower until I finally canned this from my collection. It's just too sordid.....but, for the first-time viewer, a real eye-opener which keeps your attention.

"The hit must be done tonight. The mark is expecting you, and won't resist." That was the set up, but hardly comes close to what confronts Anthony LaPaglia.

A lot of important crooks want Mimi Rogers dead. Why? No one really says, but we start to understand at her first appearance in this marvelous film: she's assertive, smart, stylish, educated, curious, and, yes, very sexy.

Almost a cast of two - others only serve to set up the characters or the plot - with Matt Craven as superb comic relief, the story slowly exposes the soul of the hit man and the real reason for the hit.

Marvelous work by all in the cast; especially Rogers and LaPaglia.

I saw this fifteen years ago; powerful remembrances made me search for it and watch it again today.

How this sensational first feature failed to become a massive critical hit I am at a loss to understand. With just a few characters and a rudimentary plot, Mark Malone has fashioned a stare into the soul as bleak and uncompromising as anything since Last Tango in Paris. Lapaglia and Mimi Rogers make a heart-stopping duo thrust into a situation so replete with irony that it is almost Shakespearean. And to continue the theatrical reference, Malone uses Brechtian chapter titles to distance the audience and make the whole tragedy bearable. Finally under no circumstances should audiences miss the post-credit sequence (at the end) which perfects a classic circular structure and monumentalises the work. 'Nuf said!

Before the Sopranos went on air we have a hired gun, a maffiosi, a killer who doubts the real meaning of it all. In fact he wonders the meaning of meaning. Without being to psychological it is a good thriller with the question 'Will he kill her'. Possibly a little too soon it is obvious whether he will or not but as a whole it is definitely worth watching albeit just for Mimi Rogers who till the end keeps you asking whether she - as an actress - is really terminally ill or just pulling everbody's strings