Ultra-violent, foul-mouthed crime thriller with pop culture references galore and an unignorable level of style and energy.

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2006)

Take a look at the credentials of True Romance. Firstly, director Tony Scott - brother of Ridley - had made a series of visually hyper-active and ultra-violent action movies (Beverly Hills Cop II, Revenge, The Last Boy Scout). Secondly, writer Quentin Tarantino had penned and directed the ground-breaking Reservoir Dogs. Thirdly, the cast comprises of a gallery of supporting slimeballs played by edgy character-actors, each of whom had given the world some of THE unforgettable screen characters in their earlier films (Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer, Ed Lauter, Bronson Pinchot). Anyone expecting True Romance to be a quiet, low-key, gentle crime caper would have to have spent their lives on Mars! True to the form of its blood-obsessed talents it is an energetic, foul-mouthed, relentlessly violent, curiously comical crime thriller which commands attention in spite of its intentional excesses.
In Detroit, young comic book store worker Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) hooks up with a prostitute named Alabama (Patricia Arquette) at a late-night movie theatre. Within a few hours they are in love, and soon after that they get married. But Clarence still feels the urge to confront Alabama's pimp, the dreadlocked psycho Drexl (Gary Oldman), on the one hand so that he can claim back her suitcase full of personal belongings and on the other because deep down inside he wants to hurt the pimp's pride. Their confrontation turns ugly and Clarence ends up killing his vicious rival; afterwards he leaves the scene with what he believes is Alabama's suitcase, but it transpires later that he has walked away with a different suitcase containing a fortune in uncut cocaine. Clarence and Alabama skip town and head for Hollywood, hoping to offload the drugs onto a movie star or producer at a cut price. Unfortunately, both the cops and the drug kingpins are keen to get hold of the suitcase full of cocaine too, so they put men on Clarence's trail. Clarence meets up with his old pal Dick (Michael Rappaport), now a struggling bit player in Hollywood, who via a contact arranges a drug sale with an ace movie producer (Saul Rubinek). Unknown to each other the various parties who covet the coke-loaded suitcase draw nearer to a fatal, blood-drenched rendezvous in an LA hotel room from which no-one can expect to walk away alive....
True Romance is full of terrific hard-boiled dialogue and comical pop culture references. Slater is brilliant in the leading role, as is Arquette as his likably weird wife, but it's the gallery of crooked supporting characters who rule this movie. Walken has a chilling one-scene cameo; Hopper is terrific as Clarence's estranged father; Brad Pitt turns up briefly as a totally spaced-out drug addict; and Oldman is instantly fearsome in his electrifying scenes as the sadistic pimp. Tony Scott piles up the body count with one stylishly violent scene after another, all set to a soundtrack that is a trash-culture aficionado's wet dream. All the cursing, blood-letting, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll eventually lose their impact through sheer repetition, but even then there's still the acting and dialogue to fall back on. You may need to have an amoral streak - or certainly a degree of tolerance - to enjoy True Romance, but if you like your movies fast, mean and outrageously raw you'll probably have a blast.