ROMEO IS BLEEDING (1993)

Girls Just Wanna Have Blood

Romeo Is Bleeding is not a perfect film but it is perfectly insane. No surprise as it’s directed by Peter Medak. Show me anyone else who has an oeuvre as perversely wide ranging as The Ruling Class, Zorro the Gay Blade, The Changeling, and—why the hell not— Species II.

Written by Hilary Henkin (who has her own what-the-filmography of Wag the Dog, Roadhouse, and Flowers in the Attic), Romeo Is Bleeding is about corrupt cop Jack Grimaldi (Gary Oldman) getting in over his head with a botched mob hit and losing his perfect life with Annabella Sciorra. Well, perfect according to Jack. Enter Lena Olin in her feral turn as Mona Demarkov, a mobster rival that systematically—and deservedly—destroys Jack’s life, dragging him screaming and bloody from the sheets to the streets of pre-condo Greenpoint.  

If this is sounding like a typically ironic ‘90s neo noir—and I didn’t even tell you it has Juliette Lewis in it yet—it really isn’t. This film knows you need a heart if you want to bleed. Henkin’s…