MOVIE REVIEW : Lena Olin Triumphs Amid ‘Romeo’s’ Clutter

“Romeo Is Bleeding” (citywide) is choked with stylishness. It’s a film noir for people who think the genre exists in order to overdose the audience on brittle-poetic dialogue, Edward Hopper-ish shadowscapes and artfully framed corpses. But it’s not really a traditional noir in the manner of, say, “Double Indemnity” or “Kiss Me Deadly.” Its fanciness gives it away.

The disjointed, self-conscious, over-the-top stylistics are supposed to make it seem avant-garde but mostly it’s just annoying. The artsy clutter gets in the way of the crime story, which is pretty flimsy to begin with.

Jack Grimaldi (Gary Oldman) is a cop on loan to a task force in charge of placing crooks in the witness relocation program. He’s also working for the mob to finger the relocated stoolies. He stuffs the mob payoffs in a hole in his back yard; his wife (Annabella Sciorra) doesn’t know about his criminal connections, and she doesn’t know about his mistress (Juliette Lewis) either.

When Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin) enters his life, the film flips into one long tailspin. Jack is supposed to guard Mona for the witness protection program; he’s also supposed to deliver her up to the mob’s lizardly, philosophical chieftain (Roy Scheider).

Mona is a classic film noir femme fatale and the film’s sole triumph. She’s the only character whose over-the-top fury matches the film’s hyperactive style. Mona seems to emanate from a roar of shadows and blood: She’s a creature of doom with a bloodcurdling cackle.

Olin, who worked extensively with Ingmar Bergman, has been extraordinary in American movies before this--most notably in “Enemies, a Love Story”--but she’s never been this rip-roaringly full of guile and bile. She’s a great demented creation who uses her entire body as a sexual armament. She’s so dangerous she’s funny, with the sexiest low-slung voice since Bacall’s heyday. But Olin manages to make her funniness scary too. (She’s a real performer here, not just a parodist.)

With a character this vehement, you need an equally ferocious counterpart, but Gary Oldman staggers through his part looking wasted and anonymous. He doesn’t give his deadbeat quality any edge, and his voice-overs on the soundtrack sound facetious. Director Peter Medak, working from a script by Hilary Henkin, never finds the right tone for the film’s scattershot larcenousness, so he jumbles a whole party-platter of tones. The mixture of comic and crude and burlesque never gels.

‘Romeo Is Bleeding’

Gary Oldman: Jack Lena Olin: Mona Annabella Sciorra: Natalie Juliette Lewis: Sheri

A Gramercy Pictures release. Director Peter Medak. Producer Paul Webster. Executive producer Tim Bevan. Screenplay Hilary Henkin. Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski. Editor Walter Murch. Costumes Aude Bronson-Howard. Music Mark Isham. Production design Stuart Wurtzel. Art director W. Steven Graham. Set decorator Beth A. Rubino. Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes.

MPAA-rating: R, for strong violence, language and sexuality. Times guidelines: It includes much bloodletting and several scenes of dismemberment.