Review of Romance & Cigarettes (2005) by Alex S — 17 Nov 2008

There is a scene in this movie where Christopher Walken stabs his girlfriend and proceeds to run outside and dance with the arriving police officers while singing along to Tom Jones' "Delilah," which just happens to be playing along in the background for this whole string of events.

For some, that will be enough to sell them on the movie. For the rest, James Gandolfini cheating on his wife, Susan Sarandon, with a mistress named Tula (played oddly effectively by Kate Winslet) with random bursts of Elvis, Springsteen and more musical numbers thrown in will be required knowledge.

Make no mistake, this is a bizarre movie but one that really works when it should (Steve Buscemi and Walken add some great layers to the film) and one that almost derails comletely when it doesn't (a criminally ignored Eddize Izzard as a church choir director, the entire "serious" last third of the movie, etc.

). I get the feeling this will be a polarizing film in that you will either love it or wish you had never seen it. Personally, I found it refreshing, hilarious and quickly overlooked (it was finished in 2005, released in 2007 and came out on DVD to little fanfare in 2008).