Bulletproof Heart

"The hit must be done tonight. The mark is expecting you, and won't resist." That was the set up, but hardly comes close to what confronts Anthony LaPaglia.

A lot of important crooks want Mimi Rogers dead. Why? No one really says, but we start to understand at her first appearance in this marvelous film: she's assertive, smart, stylish, educated, curious, and, yes, very sexy.

Almost a cast of two - others only serve to set up the characters or the plot - with Matt Craven as superb comic relief, the story slowly exposes the soul of the hit man and the real reason for the hit.

Marvelous work by all in the cast; especially Rogers and LaPaglia.

I saw this fifteen years ago; powerful remembrances made me search for it and watch it again today.

Hitman Mick is approached by small time mobster George to do a rush job that night on a woman (Fiona) who has stolen a lot of money from various people. However when Mick arrives he finds that she is not only expecting him but is ready to be killed. Mick is enticed by her and starts to get to know her – falling under her mysterious spell and eventually finding what he feels is love in his otherwise dead world. However the time must come.

This film is very stylish. It begins with a `hit' that is slow and quiet while `love is all around' plays in the background. This style stays with the whole film as it manages to feel both stagy but also be a cool and slick piece of film. The problem is that this style isn't fully carried into the plot or the characters. While the story of a hitman falling for his victim or finding love isn't new I still want something more than the usual.

This is too straight forward and expects us to make huge leaps way too quickly in the film. The slick direction almost helps to conceal this – but not quite. The lack of character development in the two lead roles also weakens the film. LaPaglia can stare into the distance and act detached all he wants but his sudden fall into love is not easy to swallow at any point. He almost manages to hide this by `looking deep and lost' but not totally. Rogers swings from bubbly to scared to ready every 5 minutes and we never get to go beneath the surface with her. Boyle is OK if only because his performance brings the strengths out in his role without exposing the weaknesses.

Overall a stylish directing job and several really nice touches do not a great film make. The weakness in plot and character are evident from 15 minutes in ans stay there for the rest of the film. It's a shame – a better developed script and characters would have made this a much better film. Good but flawed.

Bulletproof Heart (1994)

This wears its film noir visuals on its sleeve and even there, in the one clear intention by the filmmakers, it holds back. For one reason, it's in color, but not the noir intense color you might expect in a modern iteration, but a dull and workaday visual approach with grey blacks and soft edges. Too bad, because the visuals were the one hope for making this thing work.

The idea is promising--a woman knows she is going to be killed by a hired killer, and she seduces the killer(s) and avoids her death, at least at first (not to give away the end). But that is the entire plot idea, totally, so for an hour and a half we slowly (slowly) get there. There is a lot of "soft porn" as we go, and not very good either (not advancing the plot and not for its own sake, whatever soft porn is supposed to be doing in a movie in the first place). The script has shades of the clipped dialog and indifference lead character of noir, but maybe the comparison to great films of the past isn't helping appreciate this one.

The director, Mark Malone, has a series of five star movies to his name (five out of ten) except his last one, which gets three. This is his first, and it feels like it, with some clumsy breaks in the narrative flow that feel like film school tricks. The writing is painful, the editing lazy.

There are better low budget crime and suspense films to cut your teeth on.

A Must See! Anthony LaPaglia, Peter Boyle and Matt Craven do a terrific job. However, it's Mimi Rogers outstanding and shocking performance of desperation, resignation, and the ability to play 'the game' on her terms using powerful emotion and sex, with the shady characters that makes this movie awesome. She does this from start to finish and you can be the judge if she's doing this out of necessity or out of pleasure, or "just to play the game". The plot is complete and has twists and turns. Originally it was released as "Bulletproof Heart". Great character study and human nature teeming with emotion in all the characters. The assassin, the old friend who's now a driver, will make you twitch while you watch this movie, and the Boss. The Boss who pushes the assassin to clean up his act with this new hit, since his last assassination was blotched up. It weaves together to create a super movie, you'll never forget!

Before the Sopranos went on air we have a hired gun, a maffiosi, a killer who doubts the real meaning of it all. In fact he wonders the meaning of meaning. Without being to psychological it is a good thriller with the question 'Will he kill her'. Possibly a little too soon it is obvious whether he will or not but as a whole it is definitely worth watching albeit just for Mimi Rogers who till the end keeps you asking whether she - as an actress - is really terminally ill or just pulling everbody's strings