This is Both - An Irreverent High-Voltage Thriller And A ' Truly Quirky Romance'!

Rating: 9/10 (13 February 2016)

'True Romance' is a deliciously pulpy romp that saw director Tony Scott bring a burnished visual sheen to an early Quentin Tarantino script. While the title suggests images of hugs, kisses, holding hands, and heartfelt human emotion, the film instead bombards the audience with images of blazing guns, brutal beatings, and lots of gushing blood while telling a twisted and entertaining tale of outlaw lovers on the run.
Clarence (Christain Slater in his best role ever) is a comic-book store employee, living a meager but not intolerable life in Detroit. On his birthday night, he meets a pretty blonde hooker named Alabama (Patricia Arquette, reliably efficient and displaying a great chemistry with Slater) and they are soon positively smitten, declaring their love for each other, only to be married a few days later. Clarence goes to see her pimp, Drexl (a truly whacked-out Gary Oldman who devours his ten minutes on screen), with the meeting ending with Clarence killing him and making off with a suitcase. The case, which Clarence thought contained Alabama's clothes, actually contains two-million dollars' worth of cocaine, and this puts this newly-married duo find themselves in quite the thorny predicament. Once the dust - and blood - clears, they decide to trek off to Hollywood to see Clarence's pal who might know some industry folks interested in high-quality coke. Little do they know that Drexl's partners (led by Christopher Walken's quietly malicious Vincenzo) are tracking them and intend to get their merchandise back, eliminating the couple for good measure.
True Romance is a paper-thin but enjoyably quirky romance carried by great dialogue, an unpredictable plot, and a cast of wildly original characters. The storyline is far from earth-shattering, but it guarantees some good escapist fun, especially since the script boasts a few scenes possessive of great wit and sparkle, along with a show-stopping one chock-full of dynamic psychological tension – between Dennis Hopper (who brings a phenomenal degree of warmth as Clarence's father) and Christopher Walken, whose "vendetta kinda mood" head-to-head became one of the most memorable sparrings of cinema. Many people may be turned off by the graphic and sometimes savage violence of True Romance. But that is only part of the dirty, funny and unpredictably violent genius of Mr. Tarantino. Tarantino and Tony Scott never pretend that the film is more than what it is - slickly entertaining trash.
Eventually, it is Tarantino's gutter poetry that detonates True Romance. This movie is dynamite - a hip, clever and irreverent high-voltage thriller with nary a dull moment!