GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

seymourblack-1 Blood, bullets and black comedy feature strongly in this action-packed slice of Nineties noir that entertains by taking a whole series of typical film noir ingredients and hyping them up to the max. Its story about the downfall of a New York City cop is told in flashback with the man himself providing the hardboiled narration. Despite this, he never becomes a sympathetic character because he's entirely self-centred, driven by greed and lust and habitually betrays everyone who puts any trust in him. Through his own actions, he charts the course of his own journey to hell which suddenly goes into overdrive from the moment that he meets one of the most monstrous femmes fatales imaginable.NYPD Detective Jack Grimaldi (Gary Oldman) is a guy with big dreams who envies the lifestyles of the mobsters that he keeps under surveillance in his day-to-day work and supplements his meagre earnings by acting as an informant for local Mob boss Don Falcone (Roy Scheider). After tipping Falcone off about the whereabouts of Nick Gazzara (Dennis Farina), a gangster who, under the witness protection program, had volunteered to give evidence, Gazzara is assassinated by Russian hit-woman Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin) who also kills the Feds who were responsible for guarding the witness.Mona is soon arrested and Jack is instructed to take her to a safe-house from where she'll be collected by FBI agents. At the safe-house , she uses seduction as a weapon to quickly assert her dominance over the weak-willed cop and he's subsequently found in a very compromising position when the FBI men arrive.Jack, a serial womaniser who'd been nicknamed "Romeo" by his colleagues, is unfaithful to his supportive wife Natalie (Annabella Sciorra) and takes his good-natured mistress Sheri (Juliette Lewis) for granted despite the fact that she'd do absolutely anything for him. He's also addicted to "feeding the hole" in his back yard where he keeps the considerable amount of cash that he'd been paid by Falcone and thinks that he's doing really well until Falcone suddenly wants him to kill Mona and isn't prepared to take "no" for an answer. The mayhem that follows then becomes very violent, not always credible and full of surprises.One of the best things about this movie is its tremendous cast which features people of the calibre of Dennis Farina, Juliette Lewis and Annabella Sciorra in supporting roles and Roy Scheider who's exceptionally good as the intimidating Falcone. Gary Oldman is perfect in a part that could almost have been written for him and Lena Olin seems to thoroughly enjoy portraying all the antics of her ruthless, sadistic and completely unhinged femme fatale."Romeo Is Bleeding", with its stylish direction, top-class cinematography and atmospheric score is often lurid, sensational and over-the-top but its comic-book style is perfectly suited to the nature of its characters and its fast-moving plot.

chaos-rampant This has the basic fulcrum of noir; red-haired devilish femme fatale, the schmuck who is bedeviled by desire for sex and money, looking bamboozled while being smitten by cruelly ironic fate, desire that bends reality and manifests in offbeat ways. I do like that we have it dictating metaphorical spaces of being lured and trapped by that desire.A hole in the ground that he has to keep feeding with money. Watching through binoculars at sex across the street, inflamming the desire. A dream where he's inside a giant ferry wheel and buffed around while she is playing his life at dice down below. The embarrassment of rolling on the floor with her when his colleagues walk through the door. It ends in an aptly noirish way, quoting Detour, where he's been the narrator gone mad as he waits hopelessly in some desert limbo, flicking through the photo-album that chronicles a life wasted when desire entered the pictures and all this (diner, photos) as being trapped in his own mind that relives the past and is conjuring the film itself.Even that is rather intermittent here, not the result of focused vision like the Coens or Almodovar did. Truth be told, I'm simply not too enamored of the obviousness that accompanies many of these modern attempts at film noir. It's like an excessively made up face wearing with some effort a selfconscious grimace as it makes its way through the amoral occasion. For whatever reason I am reminded a lot of Lynne's attempt at Lolita; something that was elusively fluid in its original guise, stultified by too much focus on grooming appearances.Oldman affects his usual twitching self, rather apt in the whole thing. The femme fatale can be overtly sexual in ways she couldn't in Hays code days.Noir Meter: 3/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Neo

mrcoolsoul I never usually write on these forums but such a low score for what I consider to be a masterpiece of acting and film-making compelled me to express my opinion.I must admit that I have always preferred films which are narrated (if you note the success of the Shawshank redemption, it is obvious that I am not alone in this) and 'Romeo is Bleeding' is no exception! The acting (in my humble opinion (i never attended film school and didn't take a degree in media studies)) is absolutely fantastic (Gary Oldman can do no wrong) and the storyline is both engrossing and compelling. The film has every element which I crave, both a story to die for and the most powerful characters to ever bring homicidal mania to the screen. The end result is a roller-coaster of a movie portraying the inevitable emotional and spiritual demise of those who sell their soul for temporary material and physical gratification. The most important message I inferred from this movie is, if you are lucky enough to find true love in this life, then treasure it and protect it with your entire being. Once you have it and lose it, the worthlessness of your existence will only be compounded by its loss, and your life will be a metaphorical tumbleweed cast adrift in a desolate desert of despair.F*ckin great movie tho - 10/10

merklekranz 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