True Romance (1993)
Directed by Tony Scott

Film Review

Before he made his first film, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Quentin Tarantino wrote the screenplay for True Romance, which he subsequently claimed was his most autobiographical work.  Having written the script, Tarantino apparently lost interest in it and sold it to Tony Scott, an established filmmaker (and younger brother of Ridley Scott) with several notable successes already under his belt, including Top Gun (1986) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987).  Scott liked the script but hated the ending (a typically Tarantino-esque downer) and replaced it with one which he felt fitted better with the fairytale-like tone of the story.  Although Scott and Tarantino almost came to blows over the film's ending, no one can deny that Scott's visualisation of Tarantino's story is masterful, a stunning blend of old fashioned romance and modern ultra-violent gangster film that positively reeks of Tarantino's love for pulp fiction, at its bloodiest and most extravagant.  Any similarity to Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) is, of course, purely coincidental.

Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette make a superb modern day Bonnie and Clyde, two likeable innocents who can't help getting sucked into a world of excessive violence which increasingly resembles a dark parody of a gangster film.  (Often, we cannot be sure whether to laugh out loud or be viscerally shocked by what comes up on the screen.)  Some very big name actors lend their support in a dizzying array of impressive and often enjoyably daft supporting roles, adding to the film's appeal no end.  Val Kilmer is dolled up as the campest Elvis Presley look-alike ever, whilst Gary Oldman does his audition piece for the nastiest piece of filth in history, only to get his wedding tackle blown off in the first of the film's sadistically vicious set pieces.  Christopher Walken obviously delights in tormenting Dennis Hopper in the film's most chilling scene - a taste of things to come in Tarantino's next film, Pulp Fiction (1994) - and Brad Pitt comes to a similarly sticky end as a stoned roommate, who probably doesn't even know what hit him.  Bronson Pinchot is thrown in for comic relief as the Hollywood goon who gets to live scenes from his worst nightmare, which include a ride on a rollercoaster, playing the stooge in a police sting operation, and getting caught in the crossfire of a gangland shootout which looks like footage from a Vietnam war film - who says an actor's life is all fun?

Tony Scott lives up to his reputation as an action film director - True Romance includes some of his most brilliantly choreographed action sequences - but he handles the film's more intimate scenes with just as much flair and commitment.  The opening part of the film includes some touching interplay between the leads (Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are perfectly matched and add much to the film's slightly unreal quality), and the violent confrontations that ensue would be no more than meaningless thuggery were it not for the underlying warmth and optimism carried by the two main characters.  Whilst it was a spectacular flop on its first release (it failed to recoup its 15 million dollar budget), True Romance is undoubtedly one of Tony Scott's finest films - perhaps not as coherent and visually spectacular as some of his other great action films, but one which successfully marries the unlikeliest of bedfellows, the rose-tinted fairytale romance and the hard-edged, blood-splattered gangster film.  That's the magic of cinema - anything is possible.

Film Synopsis

Clarence Worley is an Elvis Presley fan and film enthusiast who works in a comic book store in Detroit.  To celebrate his birthday, he goes to watch a trio of martial arts films at his local cinema.  It is here that he meets Alabama Whitman, an attractive young blonde who is easily persuaded to come to bed with him.  After making love, Alabama confesses: (a) that she is a call girl, paid for by Clarence's boss as a birthday treat, and (b) that she has genuinely fallen in love with Clarence.  The couple agree to get married straight away, but first they must deal with Alabama's psychotic pimp, Drexl Spivey.  Having shot Spivey dead in a violent confrontation, Clarence inadvertently picks up a suitcase full of pure cocaine and hits the road with Alabama.  Clarence visits his father, a cop, and asks him to find out if he can be linked to Spivey's death.  It turns out the police are certain the pimp was killed by drugs dealers, so Clarence and Alabama believe they are in the clear and head for Los Angeles to try and sell their haul of cocaine to the first A-list actor they come across.  What they do not know is that the drugs' rightful owner, a nasty Sicilian gangster named Vincenzo Coccotti, is determined to get them back, at any price.  Clarence's nightmare ordeal has only just begun...