If you come from a dirty city centre like I do (Central Norwich, UK in my case !) you'll love this !Quite an dark,sinister plot. Gary Oldman has to protect a Russian hit woman as a cop, but kill her as a member of a mob. Naturally the sleazy,erotic style of the film involves him 2-timing his wife, not only with the hit woman but also with Juliette Lewis (a waitress).Plenty of dirty urban landscapes/structures for all you other city rats! Plenty of scantily dressed girls in sexually uncompromising situations ! Plenty of violence, especially dismemberment! Yes, this is the ultimate dirty,violent + generally nihilistic metropolitan film !

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 was looking at blurays/dvds at Carrefour a few days ago (European version of Walmart) and I saw the DVD of Romeo Is Bleeding in the cheap DVD section. Generally these are crap films which nobody buys. It was 5.99 TL (Turkish liras). I looked at the back cover and saw that Gary Oldman, whom I think is one of the most underrated actors ever, starred in the film. I consider him to be very talented. I bought the film thinking it might be good and it was not only good, it was actually amazing. The cinematography was beautiful, Oldman and Olin were very good in their roles, the rest of the cast was also good though I think James Cromwell could have a bigger part. The storyline was good and I was not bored for a second, I was interested in what was going to happen next throughout the movie so the pacing was well adjusted.The film is a film noir set in the 90s with a sort of New York we have not seen before. Some people might claim the psycho woman character was unrealistic but I do not think so, many criminals are not like normal people, and she's a prime example.In short, this is one of the most unknown great films that can be bought for a low price. It is underrated and not known by many people, but it is still a classic crime thriller.

Jack Grimaldi of New York's finest has been doing petty jobs for a mob which the department has been going after. He gets a few thousand dollars with every job, and he adds it to a pile hidden in his backyard. His latest job is to take out the Russian assassin, who he just arrested the other day. While in his custody she offers him an even better deal with more money. But first , he has to fake her death, getting him clean with the boss, and then he must get out of the mob gig before he gets caught. Things are getting tougher with each passing moment.The whole thing doesn't come together very well. Romeo is Bleeding would have been better with the less is more approach. Some details like Jack's involvement with three different women, and the stiff necked feds (who only appear twice) prove fairly useless to the story. Their screen time may have been a bit more worth while, if anyone bothered to act well. The only good performance is Roy Scheider. This guy has never done a bad movie, and his one talky scene is actually a pretty good one, certainly the best in the film. Him aside, there are two kinds of performances in Romeo is Bleeding; there are the lazy ones, and there are the hammy ones. Gary Oldman is a case of the former. This is not the kind of person we end up caring for. The ending, which is supposed to earn our sympathy instead earns our impatience. It has an overwritten melodramatic monologue which drags on way too long. Romeo is Bleeding delivers the classic 'noir' first person narration. If it had done a better job of explaining the story as it unfolded rather than the tiny little voice in Oldman's head, I think that would have also been an improvement on the filmWhen all is said and done, Romeo is Bleeding qualifies as a swing and a miss. It is in desperate need of a rewrite, an energy boost, and some brains. I'll have to say skip this one.