Cheap Frills

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

Mone Demarkov (Lena Olin) displays a fetching array of frilly panties, garter belts, stocking tops and high heels in Romeo Is Bleeding. The sensible viewer may wonder if this is quite the right wardrobe for a woman in her line of work, which happens to be hit person for the Mob. Perhaps sturdy wool slacks and a pair of cross-trainers might be more appropriate.

But practical considerations are of no account in movies like this, which never bear the slightest resemblance to any known reality. Ostensibly this one is about Jack (Gary Oldman), a rogue cop with a nice wife (Annabella Sciorra), an eager mistress (Juliette Lewis) and a profitable sideline in helping the Mafia locate apostates who think they've found safety in the witness- protection program. But the Mafia don (a wildly miscast Roy Scheider) has given Jack a sort of promotion: he's entrusted with actually putting the hit on Mona, who, naturally, deploys all her sexual cunning to evade her fate.

This brings us to the movie's real business, which is to get Jack and Mona wrestling around together. Some blood is spilled on these occasions, so a sex- and-violence equivalency is established. There is also a bondage subtext that climaxes with Jack handcuffed to a bed and Mona in dominatrix black leather. Possibly writer Hilary Henkin sees Mona as a woman empowered by a brutal feminism. Possibly director Peter Medak, who specializes in Eurotrash artiness, sees the film as an upscale gloss on the gangster genre. Everyone else will observe that in structure and intent it is soft-core porn and, since it is written by a woman, something for Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon to ponder.