Back when Quentin Tarantino was only one movie deep into his two-film conquest of Hollywood, the assault was carried on in his stead by a couple of directors who adapted a couple of scripts he’d sold in order to finance his ascension to movie maverick overlord. The second was Oliver Stone’s predictably incendiary Natural Born Killers which saw the director changing a lot of the original script, but the first was True Romance, a twisted love story that could possibly lay claim to being the most 90s movie ever made.
Featuring director Tony Scott on the cusp of moving on from unfathomably slick 80s actioners to unfathomably cool 90s thrillers and a cast list utterly groaning with famous faces, the film proved to be one of the underrated gems of the entire decade thanks to the talents of both Tarantino and Scott merging surprisingly well.
But be warned, this duo’s idea of True Romance may be a whole lot bloodier than yours…
Lonely, Elvis-obsessed youth, Clarence Worley is spending his birthday doing what he loves, namely watching a Sonny Chiba triple bill at the local movie house in his native Detroit. However, Clarence’s cold, lonesome existence is about to get a boost in the form of a “chance” meeting with novice call girl Alabama Whitman, who subsequently rocks his world on the dime of his boss at the comic book store where he works – but after finding out that Alabama was paid to be with him, the two find that they have completely and utterly fallen in love and after pledging themselves to one another, go out and get married the next morning.
However, this comes with a lot more complications than just suddenly rushing in to marriage; there’s Alabama’s maniacal, white, dreadlocked, pimp, Drexl, for one thing and things soon go completely out of control after Clarence tries to intimidate the guy to let his wife leave his services. In the aftermath of the bloody carnage, Clarence escapes with what he believes is a suitcase full of Alabama’s things, but later at his apartment, the couple discovers that what he actually grabbed was a shit-ton of China white.
The pair immediately realise that if they can offload this coke somewhere, they could afford to live happily ever after in a warmer climate and so, after getting with a wanabe actor friend in LA, they load up Clarence’s purple cadillac and head out to make their fortune. However, unbeknownst to them, numerous forces are moving to intercept the couple starting with the cocaine’s real owners, the Mob. On top of that, Clarence’s cover story that he got the drugs from a dirty cop soon gets to the ears of the Los Angeles Police Department Narcotics division who are desperate to make this bust.
They say that all, true, romance stories have a tragic ending – but if that’s accurate, what will happen to Clarence and Alabama?
So, before we go any further, I just want you to know that I get it. True Romance may be the most flagrant act of unabashed wish fulfillment that emerged during the 90s and Tarantino’s script barely even tries to hide it as its malajusted, weirdo lead manages to woo a kooky call girl with nothing more than a couple of kung-fu movies and a soliloquy about comic books. On top of that, not only is said call girl clean (Clarence is only her third customer) and a closet geek too, she’s also hot, busty and is willing to give up her (admittedly shitty) life after one night with our hero. To spell it out so plainly, it’s almost laughable and it’s probably so autobiographical to a young Quentin, we should probably give thanks that there isn’t a lengthy scene where Clarence sucks Alabama’s toes – however, while True Romance stands out a little compared to Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, it ultimately makes much more sense when held up to Tarantino’s more fantastical works like Kill Bill.
The script’s contents are iron clad and are as ridiculously cool as they are lauded, but I truly believe that the reason that True Romance soars so fucking high, is the underrated input of the late, great Tony Scott. Let’s put it this way, if you want to put some Hollywood sheen on such a blatant and shameless case of youthful wish fulfillment, why wouldn’t you employ the man who made fucking Top Gun? As a result; Scott just gets it, ironing out those rough edges, turning it into a fucked up fairy tale, and serving up the writers tradmark acts of staggering violence in a way that arguably surpasses some of the more hideous acts the director ever served up himself.
However, writing awesome dialogue and pointing cameras at it is one thing, but if you don’t have the right actors involved then you’re screwed right from the start. Lucky then that True Romance probably has some of the most perfect casting that ever emerged from the decade. The ensemble is, frankly stunning, and the script gives then all room to breath in their own individual moments as they literally drift in and out of the film while all leaving an indelible mark. Attention is immediately drawn to the flashier roles such as Gary Oldman’s thinks-he’s-black pimp, Drexl and Christopher Walken’s terrifying mob heavy Vincenzo Coccotti, but aside from them we are also gifted with Brad Pitt’s clueless stoner, James Gandolfini’s brutishly philosophical hitman, Dennis Hopper’s downtrodden father figure, Michael Rapaport hapless actor, Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore’s dogged cops – and let’s not forget Val Kilmer as Elvis Presley’s ghost. All shine, often with mere minutes under their belt, but the cream of the crop is obviously the instance when the movie stops in its tracks to let Walken and Hooper savour a legendary scene that sees the latter invoke a very racist history lesson in order to gain a sliver of an upper hand.
However, none of this would resonate if the two leads couldn’t hold their own in the face of a blizzard of A-list actors going insanely hard and real kudos have to go to Patricia Arquette (especially during her battle to the death with Gandolfini) and Christian Slater, who somehow manages to turn avoid turning his potentially problematic character into something much more than an incel version of Badlands.
It’s always been easy to just point a finger at True Romance and simply announce that the presence of a Tarantino script is the sole reason it’s a masterpiece – but I put it to you that it’s everyone putting in such exemplary work that helps temper the filmmaker’s vision into something that isn’t the masterbatory fantasy it easily could have become. It’s crude, it’s violent and it makes romantic leads of highly dubious characters – and this is just the good points.
If you haven’t already, prepare to fall in love with True Romance.
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