Released in the United States by Gramercy Pictures, the film was critically unsuccessful and did not perform well at the box office (grossing $7 million from a $10 million budget), although its acting has garnered praise.
Plot
Jack Grimaldi is an NYPDhomicide detective who seems to have everything; a lavish lifestyle, a beautiful wife named Natalie, and an adoring teenaged mistress named Sheri. However, Jack's affords his lifestyle thanks to extensive corruption, doing favors for Mafia boss Don Falcone in exchange for large cash bribes. Jack's latest task is to reveal the location of Nick Gazarra, a mobster-turned-state's witness protected by federal agents. Gazarra and his protection detail are subsequently killed by a mob hitwoman, Mona Demarkov. Jack is disaffected by this outcome, being uncomfortable with his complicity in the deaths of other law enforcement personnel.
Mona is arrested and Falcone assigns Jack to kill her, as he fears that she could not only testify against him but take over his entire operation. Still reluctant about his double life, Jack is assigned as Mona's minder as she is transported to a safe house to await pick-up by federal agents. Upon arrival, Mona quickly seduces and tries to kill Jack, but their impromptu tryst is interrupted by the arrival of the agents. Jack leaves Mona to be detained.
Falcone, disappointed in Jack's ineptitude, orders one of his toes amputated. Realizing he has endangered both his wife and mistress, Jack instructs Natalie to leave the city immediately, giving her all of the payoff money he has saved as well as instructions for where to meet him out West when the time is right. Jack also ends his affair with Sheri and puts her on a train out of the city. He tries to hunt Mona but is attracted to her sexually and no match for her professionally. Mona offers to pay Jack to help her fake her own death.
Although he obtains false papers for her, Mona refuses to pay and attempts to strangle Jack. He shoots and wounds her in the arm, then tries to drive away with her handcuffed in the back seat. Mona escapes by hooking her legs around his neck, causing him to crash the car. She slithers out through the shattered windshield without freeing her hands. Mona lures Jack to an empty apartment. He again attempts to kill her but is tricked into shooting Sheri instead. Mona fixes the corpse so as to suggest that it was she, and not Sheri, who died. Mona has Jack abducted and transported to an abandoned warehouse: she handcuffs him to a bed and they have sex. Later she forces Jack to assist in burying Falcone alive.
Mona betrays Jack by turning him in to the police, copping a plea deal that will indict Jack for the multiple murders that she tricked him into committing. The police arrange a confrontation between Jack and Mona at the courthouse. Mona tells Jack sex with him was lame, that Jack's wife "is a dead woman" and that Jack himself "is a dead man". Furious, Jack grabs a gun from a fellow officer's ankle holster and shoots Mona dead. He turns the gun on himself, only to discover that the revolver is now empty. Instead of being sent to prison for the murder, he is given a commendation. This frees him to begin a new life out West, under the identity of "Jim Daugherty".
The final scene shows Jack living alone in a remote desert town and working at a diner. He waits every May 1 and December 1 for his wife, Natalie, to find him, as they planned before she left; but she never does. As he waits for her, he mourns his old life while looking at his wedding photo album: first, the many color photos of himself and Natalie, followed by black and white Polaroids of his various affairs - including Mona.
Jon Bon Jovi wrote the song "Always" for the film but withheld the track after he was dissatisfied with a preview screening. Bon Jovi in 2004 recalled, "The script was great: the movie wasn't."[5]
Reception
Despite an unfavorable critical response to the film, Gary Oldman's performance has garnered acclaim.
The film received mixed reviews.[6]Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said that while Oldman is "unsurpassable" in portraying depraved characters, the film is "an exercise in overwrought style and overwritten melodrama, and proof that a great cast cannot save a film from self-destruction."[7]Todd McCarthy of Variety also had praise for the central cast, but called the film a "heavy dose of ultra-violent neo-noir" whose "far-fetched plotting eventually goes so far over the top that [the] pic flirts with inventing a new genre of film noir camp."[8]New York Times journalist Janet Maslin lauded Oldman as a "master craftsman" who gives an "uncanny performance as a slang-spouting American", but concluded, "For all its promise, and for all the brittle beauty of Dariusz Wolski's cinematography, Romeo Is Bleeding eventually collapses under the weight of its violent affectations."[9] A favorable Peter Travers in Rolling Stone called the film a "scorcher of a thriller" with a "knockout performance" by Olin. He added, "It will be a shame if audiences don't get the joke".[10]
In a retrospective review, Dennis Schwartz referred to the film as a "senseless, tasteless and demented postmodern noir", but commended Olin's "menacing" turn as well as the initial interaction between Oldman and Scheider.[11] Randy Miller of DVD Talk wrote, "It's a wild and entertaining ride, to be sure... but not one without its fair share of bumps along the way, and one you probably won't revisit on a regular basis. Still, there's enough here to warrant another look."[12]MSN Movies noted, "While not a great movie – or even a good movie, according to most critics – Gary Oldman's performance as corrupt cop Jack Grimaldi is still highly regarded".[13]Romeo Is Bleeding holds a 27% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 41 reviews, with an average score of 4.7/10.[14]
Box office
The film debuted poorly at the box office[15] and grossed $3.3 million in total in the US and Canada and $7 million worldwide.[16][4] It did not fare any better in the United Kingdom, opening on 43 screens and grossing £50,438 in its opening weekend, ranking 12th in the UK and 8th in London.[6]
