"True Romance" was the first movie script that Quentin Tarantino sold. He got all of $50,000 for it, which helped fund his breakthrough film "Reservoir Dogs". Although action veteran Tony Scott ("Top Gun", "Days of Thunder") served as director, "True Romance" has some of the feel of a Tarantino film because of its script. Some Tarantino trademarks are missing: the chronology is linear rather than jumbled, and there are no obscure pop/soul oldies in the soundtrack. But the profanity, humor, and incredible violence present in Tarantino-directed films are here as well.
With a title like "True Romance", and the film's innocuous beginning, there is little clue given to the action and violence that is to come. Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) is such a loser that his boss pays a call girl named Alabama (Patricia Arquette) to seduce him. (Where does one get bosses like that? Just kidding) Worley has been saturated in the obscure pop culture of comic books and 'B' movies: there may be a little of Tarantino in him. Clarence also is hung up on Elvis, and even receives unhelpful advice from the King's ghost (Val Kilmer).
Alabama takes such a liking to Clarence that she marries him. Clarence visits her black wannabe pimp (Gary Oldman) to retrieve her things, and ends up with a suitcase of cocaine instead. He goes on the run, leaving his father (Dennis Hopper) to take the fall. Mafia hit men hired by kingpin Vincenzo (Christopher Walken) track Clarence to Hollywood, where he is attempting to sell the coke to famed movie producer Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek). Lee's brown-nosing gopher is Elliot (Bronson Pinchot, who has toned down his usual outrageousness). Brad Pitt shows up as a layabout pothead, oblivious to the madness that surrounds him.
Clarence's personality shifts with the wind. First he's nerdy, then he's a lover, then a tough guy, then a drug pusher. I don't buy the character, but Slater is entertaining, and of course the script supplies him with good lines. Still, the film's most memorable scenes are those without him: Walken's confrontation with Hopper, Arquette's violent struggle with the hitman, Pinchot's argument with a bimbo during a traffic stop. The climax, which has guns blazing from cops, mobsters, and bodyguards, is muddled and a bit of a letdown. But the scenes leading up to it are very good. (71/100)
When inexperienced call girl Alabama Whitman Patricia Arquette is paid to seduce comic-book-nerd and Elvis fanatic Clarence Worley Christian Slater sh...More at Family Video
DVDS. {$Quentin Tarantino} scripted this wild and wooly blend of {\action} and dark {\comedy}, which reached theaters a year before his breakthrough h...More at DeepDiscount.com
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