Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Best movie ever!

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Romeo Is Bleeding (1993) Leonesque New York Neo Noir"What is hell? Hell is when you should have walked, but you didn't. That's hell."Its not very often a film comes from way way out of left field and just blows me away, a film that actually holds interesting scenes knowingly long enough to allow you to drink them in. A film that lovingly caresses the essence of classic Film Noir, updates its violence conventions and very stylishly tells a tall tale that's so dangerously close to being over the top but yet is still believable enough to let it all roll. Romeo Is Bleeding is addictive-ly compelling in the same manner that Sergio Leone re-imagined Westerns are, and you have to scratch your head and wonder what kind of opiate were the critics and the viewing public mainlining on when this accidental masterpiece of a film debuted. This has happened many times before not only in cinema, but even in the long history of the Fine Art world. Films that at first are panned and forgotten that finally through the filter of time get interpreted right.A Neo Noir whose all star cast is excellent but actress Lena Olin steals every scene she is in.The narrated story revolves around the decent of NYPD Sergeant Jack "Romeo" Gramaldi into Noirsville. Jack's voice over narration while a throwback to classic noir is also unique, it's comprised of two voices, sometimes the present one the good Jim (aka repentant Jack), sometimes the bad Jack, and sometimes he listens to one head sometimes he listens to the other one.Jack looked just like anybody but inside he wasn't like anybody, he was going to do something about the dream. Jack supplies tips on the locations of safeguarded witnesses who will testify against the mob headed by Don Falcone. As Jack puts it he puts a quarter in a slot and $65,000 comes out of a PO Box. He takes the cash and feeds the drain hole he dug for it in the back yard of his Maspeth, Queens row house. Everything was going right until they started going wrong. Jack's tip on Gazzara gets both Gazzara and federal agents massacred by "Queen of Queens" rackets mob hit woman Mona Demarkov. Olin is Mona, the pieces lithe, sexy, Russian Femme Fatale and she is a smart, devious, scary-sexy one at that. She flashes her sex like a neon sign at the bottom of a dead end road. Jack looks like a deer caught in her headlights. She probably scared the hell out of a lot of conservative prepubescent boy scouts out there with her animal like sexuality in 1994. That may be the reason the film did poorly upon release, the Zeitgeist was't ready for the likes of Mona. She is feline, deadly, a fusion of Diana and Venus, and when she "presents" herself to Jack, he, and any of us out there that's got a pair of stones are goners. This film is one of the definitive depictions of the Female being deadlier than the Male. Jack is hypnotized between the allure of Mona and the money she baits him with. In the tradition of classic Noirs, its far more powerful a scene with what it doesn't show than say a similar sequence in Basic Instinct.After Demarkov is captured the second time she makes a deal with the feds to turn witness against Don Falcone. Sal asks Jack for her location Jack provides it but the info is wrong and Jack is summoned before Don Falcone who says he will make his wife ugly, burn his house down, and gut his girlfriend, and if he doesn't kill Mona he'll authorize it. On top of all this Jack fancies himself as a ladies man, a straying tomcat Romeo with women problems, both with his long suffering wife Natalie, and with dive waitress Sheri. Jack and Natalie have some poignant scenes together as their life together falls apart. Jack realizes too late that you don't own love, love owns you.Romeo Is Bleeding features a New York City festooned with graffiti, during the era of the World Trade Center. Williamsburg, Bushwick, and the JMZ elevated line in Brooklyn, Maspeth, in Queens, and lower Manhattan are all featured in the film. Sal like a chain smoking bad Bogart, tells Jack outside of Coney Island, that it (New York City) is like the Fall of Rome out there, the streets are filled with animals. Don Falcone acknowledges that he knows the barbarians are outside the gates but tells Jack that that doesn't mean we have to leave the door open.Weaved throughout the film both the sound design and the excellent mood pieces that make up Mark Isham's score fit so well to the scenes and overlaps creating a total atmosphere that I again recall the great collaborations of Leone/Morricone, Hitchcock/Herman and Lynch/Badalamenti. The acting is top notch every aspect of the film works amazingly well. This is a hardcore/hardboiled Neo Film Noir about melancholy and regret. Upon multiple re-watches 10/10

If you're looking for realism and seriousness don't watch it. Always complaining and whining about over-acting don't watch this. Go see Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant instead if you can handle the realism in that movie at least, has a bit of over-acting too though.Gary Oldman, Lena Olin and Roy Scheider are absolutely brilliant and super-cool in this movie.Beautiful entertaining piece of artwork. Extremely violent and very sexy.I've read a few negative reviews about this movie. I suppose those people can't relate to this. Maybe they never crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed and never as a result of this experienced the inescapable downward spiral leading straight to oblivion. Lucky them.

I really like film noir, but the films were usually done on the cheap, and suffered from it. I much prefer modern noir movies: Body Head, Lucky Number Sleven and, especially, Romeo is Bleeding. Bleak, sexy, filled with human frailty: Romeo is Bleeding navigates the fall of a weak police detective, led down the path of destruction by Lena Olin, who I would gladly follow into a blast furnace.Not since Ingred Bergman (also a Swede)has an actess done the slow burn like Lena Olin. Olin is a throw back to the studio stars of the 40s and 50s, when women were strong, tough, and oozed sex and seduction. When Olin hangs Gary Oldman out to dry, all you can say is, "Dude, that sucks, but I'm with ya." This movie is hardcore...Gary Oldman is hardcore...and Lena Olin is hardcore crazy. Olin seduces Oldman with her smile and her laughter. Such glee, such evil, such sexual energy: Olin is the flame and Oldman is the moth, and all men chorus, "Dude, That sucks, but I'm with ya."

Lena Olin's performance, no matter how cartoon-like, is memorable as the hit woman from hell. The movie itself is vicious, and extremely disjointed. For example, how did Roy Scheider suddenly and without explanation wind up in the trunk of Lena Olin's car? Another problem is Lena's miraculous recovery from severing her arm. A movie should be more than the sum of it's parts, which "Romeo is Bleeding" is not. There must be a story here somewhere, but from my viewpoint, the movie makes little sense. Ultimately it is this uneven and somewhat unbelievable storyline that sucks the film down to levels that are less than acceptable. "Romeo is Bleeding" never adds up. - MERK