Review of Romeo Is Bleeding

I may be alone in this opinion, but I consider Lena Olin's portrayal of the Russian villainess Demarkov one of the greatest villains in the last 50-60 years of film. Her manipulation of the weak-willed and weak-kneed dirty cop played by Gary Oldman (another great actor who she manages to almost blow off the screen here) is so masterfully Sado-Masochistic, it's nearly impossible to describe, but the following *MASSIVE SPOILER* will attempt to do so: To fake her own death in a fire, she saws off her own arm to leave with the remains of an armless corpse. For the rest of the movie, she uses a wood and leather "strap-on" prosthetic, which only serves to make her more seductive to Oldman and more inhumanly sinister to the rest of us. How's that for bat-s#*! insane?! This isn't a great movie (hence my 7/10) but if you've ever liked Lena Olin's work (Chocolat, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Jennifer Garner's mom in Alias), you deserve to see her in "Romeo is Bleeding." You can thank me later...🙂