CATEGORY – NEW AND NOTABLE
The Movie: “True Romance” IMDB
Release Year: 1993- Directed by: Tony Scott – Starring: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette
Akiro Kurosawa once directed a movie called “Yume”–Dreams–which was a collected scrapbook of the Japanese master’s thoughts and images, in celluloid form. True Romance is Quentin Tarantino’s own Yume–a collection of adolescent fantasies, gunplay, profanity, sex and violence that gets to the very heart of his own pulpy sensibilities. Like all his other works, it doesn’t fail to entertain, and is more human that most, with a strangely touching and affecting love story at its heart.
Clarence (Christian Slater) is practically Tarantino’s alter-ego–a shy guy from Detroit, working at a comic-book store and spending the rest of his time at Sonny Chiba-filmfests in a run-down movie theater. He’s in the middle of one of those marathons when beautiful hooker Alabama (Patricia Arquette) nudges her way into his life, hired by Clarence’s boss to give him a good time.
Somehow, they fall in love–her being won over by his gentle manner and encyclopedic knowledge of Elvis movies.
It’s never that simple, though. Alabama’s pimp (a wonderfully drugged-out Gary Oldman) refuses to let her get bought out by Clarence–so the young man promptly blows him away and amscrays with a suitcase full of the dead man’s cocaine. The two cut a boneheaded plan to head off to California to sell the coke with the help of their inept actor buddy (Michael Rapaport).
Before they can get away, though, there’s a ton of other factors to deal with. There’s a visit to Clarence’s alcoholic father (Dennis Hopper) who is promptly interrogated by creepy mafioso Vincenzo, searching for the missing coke (Christopher Walken, stealing the movie, once again) in one of the movie’s best scenes. There’s the acting buddy’s lower-level movie management associate (Bronson Pinchot) working to sell the coke to a movie mogul (Saul Rubinek). And there’s the cops (Michael Penn, Tom Sizemore) and brutal mafia hit man (James Gandolfini), all chasing Clarence, Alabama and the nose candy.
Oh, and did I mention the ghost of Elvis (Val Kilmer) advising Clarence at every turn?
The movie isn’t that deep, but it never fails to entertain, and the awesome ensemble cast spouting Tarantino’s profane, funny screenplay makes it crisp and moving. Tony Scott (Crimson Tide) has a high-energy style that works well for the movie, and he wisely keeps the focus on Clarence and Alabama, spinning a nice little love story that is quite endearing.
See? For all the bullets and broads in Tarantino’s films, maybe he’s a romantic at heart.
RATING: 9.0/10
THE DVD: Loaded, as Tarantino’s films always are. A few deleted scenes, good director’s commentary, some scene-specific commentary by Kilmer, Rapaport, Hopper and Brad Pitt, commentaries by Tony Scott, Arquette and Slater, and Tarantino, and a bunch of extra featurettes. One of the mediums best releases.
BUY IT! AMAZON
RATING 10/10
Movie Quote of the Day: “You like baseball? We need lights for the parks, so kids can play at
night. So they can play baseball. So they don’t become burros para los
malones. Everyone likes baseball. Everyone likes parks.
.”
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