Hateration log, supplemental:
BULLETPROOF HEART (1994/1995): Very peculiar film noir (sometimes entitled KILLER on home video releases), directed by Mark Malone from a script by Gordon Melbourne, about a soulful hitman named Mick (Anthony LaPaglia), whose assignment to kill a woman named Fiona (Mimi Rogers) becomes the world's weirdest first date. Mick and his half-bright assistant Archie (Matt Craven) soon discover that, far from trying to hide or escape, Fiona — who has stolen a lot of money from the mob and is now threatening to go to the D.A. — is positively desperate for someone to put her out of her misery, responding to her putative assassin with alternating fits of morbid fascination, glib taunting, sadomasochistic seductiveness, weary melancholy, and at least one catatonic fit. Mick finds himself increasingly reluctant to go through with the job, much to the frustration of both his target and his boss (Peter Boyle).
The odd scenario and repeated tonal shifts are strange enough to hold your attention throughout, but the story never really finds its groove: It might have worked as either a sexy black comedy or as a tragic romance, but it keeps trying to do both and thus not entirely succeeding as either. It doesn't help that the eventual explanation of why Fiona is so keen to die is unpersuasive, or that the ending seems to be setting up an additional twist that's not ultimately forthcoming. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Nope. VERDICT: Memorably odd, but it can't quite decide what it wants to be.
