To make explicit the inevitable comparison between this workmanlike caper-chase film and the 1972 movie that inspired it:
PLOT: The basic story still involves a married couple of lowlife career criminals double-crossing a villain and then fleeing his henchmen, while the husband, angry that his wife slept with the villain to gain his cooperation, works himself into a jealous rage.
DIRECTOR: Sam Peckinpah, who handled the '72 film, had more ability to communicate the depths of sadism and evil than Roger Donaldson, a veteran of routine action movies. Once Woods has helped spring Baldwin from a Mexican jail in this film and set up a dog-track robbery, everything is predictable.
LEAD ACTORS: Like Peckinnah's stars, Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen, Basinger and Baldwin are a couple in real life and muster the requisite passion. As a rebellious antihero, though, Baldwin can't begin to carry McQueen's smirk; he never seems as hip or charismatically cool as his more rugged predecessor. Nobody could be a worse actress, or prettier, than MacGraw, but Basinger comes close on both counts, seeming most ill at ease when she's supposed to be in moll mode. Basinger is more convincing at being overtly seductive, especially in taunting Woods, who radiates sleaziness as the ruthless bad guy.
SUPPORTING CAST: Madsen, as a vicious type who double-crosses, then hunts Baldwin, displays scarily sadistic energy. Yet Madsen's treatment of Tilly, the not-unwilling veterinarian's wife he kidnaps to help his escape, is less ominous than the way Al Lettieri treated the more convincingly ditzy Sally Struthers in Peckinpah's film.
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: Neither version can be accused of being thought-provoking, but both are reasonably involving and diverting action fodder. (R)
Gary Oldman, Lena Olin, Annabella Sciorra, Juliette Lewis
Oldman is a cop assigned to the Organized Crime Task Force in this stylish if rather thin and out-of-control black comedy. He's the kind of guy who's always listening to a voice inside—the wrong voice. This voice tells Oldman he deserves more than what he already has: job security, an appealing wife (Sciorra) and an obliging mistress (the sensational Lewis). It's this wrong voice that urges him into an arrangement with the mob: providing information about members of the Witness Protection Program, the very folks he's supposed to be safeguarding. But Oldman could use protection himself—against Olin, a gangster with a taunting laugh and a body that won't quit. Oldman's life becomes more tangled when he's tapped by his bosses to protect Olin, and tapped—quite hard—by crime boss Roy Scheider to rub Olin out. Romeo Is Bleeding, despite its crackling dialogue, is in too much of a hurry to tell its story and doesn't spend enough time on character development. Supposedly, it's the image of his wife that gets Oldman through the most parlous situations. But Sciorra is drawn too sketchily to make her talismanic power understandable. A bigger problem is the Olin-Oldman face-off. While Olin is certainly cold-blooded, she isn't crafty in an interesting way, and Oldman isn't crafty at all. Consequently, watching them circle each other isn't nearly as entertaining as it ought to be. (R)
David Johansen, John C. McGinley, Daniel Baldwin
As funny as an old filling that cracks, this pathetic sub-comedy is another attempt to dig up a bad old TV series, in this case a wretched one whose saving grace was the presence of Fred Gwynne, who maintained his dignity even while playing one of the two New York City cops whose bumbling was all the series had as a premise. (Joe E. Ross, with his "ooh-ooh" and bulging eyes, was the other.)
In this film, McGinley has the straight-man role. But there's nothing to work with in this screenplay, which is devoted mostly to sadistic slapstick and such comic ideas as having two characters argue by saying, "Did!" "Didn't!" "Did!" "Didn't!"
Perhaps the best performance comes from Baldwin, who seems to be the Baldwin brother with the sense of humor. He does a kind of modified De Niro as a claustrophobic Mafia don hunting a witness that Johansen and McGinley are guarding. Al Lewis provides fun too, reprising his role (the dyspeptic Leo Schnauzer) from the TV series. (PG-13)
Martin Lawrence
This concert film, shot last year before an adoring audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, continues where Lawrence left off on his album Talkin' S—. The big difference between the album and the movie is that the latter's title is printable.
Lawrence, the star of Fox's Martin, puckishly tramples through race relations, gender differences and other areas where those without his affable manner and infectious smile should dare not tread. He peppers his routine with advice—everything from avoiding crack to using candoms—which does not, however, hide his frequently contradictory philosophies.
Nowhere is this more apparent then in his routine on the evils of racism. While repeating a "gotta get over this racism" mantra, Lawrence suggests that Mexican-Americans made out best from the L.A.-riot looting. He also inserts an all-purpose "white guy" whenever someone stupid is needed for a particular anecdote. In another section, Lawrence discusses tolerating gays before hastily pointing out that he is in fact "for the ladies."
Offensive in some areas and boring in many others, Lawrence mistakenly believes he can breath new life into topics such as Women and Their Bodily Functions and How to Avoid Prison Rape. He is at his best dissecting the ups and inevitable downs of relationships, whipping the audience into a frenzy with his dead-on portrayal of lovers on the brink. He plays the role of a woman jealous over a restaurant coal checker as well as an even wilder, pajama-clad male lover coming to take his woman home from a disco with equal gusto. The momentum reaches such levels that Lawrence at one point wonders aloud if he should slop and take a sip of water—then finally downs a big gulp. If only the bulk of his material was so refreshing. (R)
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- Joanne Kaufman,
- Bryan Alexander.
CELINE’S INFERTILITY STRUGGLE: MY PRIVATE HEARTBREAK
Daily injections, painful tests and four failed IVF attempts: The singer, 41, reveal her dreams for a second baby. ‘I’ll try until it works’
