Clarence and Alabama Go to Cancun

Rating: 10/10 (21 September 2009)

"let's re-watch True Romance"...that's how I ended my IMDb comment of Quentin Tarantino's first, if never officially released and incomplete, film My Best Friend's Birthday. I remember finding True Romance on R4 DVD about two years ago under the title of "La Fuga", that means something like "The Escape"(I remember being surprised after finding the R4 DVD, being like "damn, how I was going to find it! That's why we don't f****** learn English!"), and I saw it immediately. After seeing, finally, My Best Friend's Birthday (the basis of the script of True Romance) I had desires to watch for the second time this film (pretty much back in 2007 I liked it but not really as much as any other film that I would like to watch more than once) and I finally did so last night. I think I liked it a bit more than the first time.
Christian Slater is Tarantino, I mean he is Clarence and he has the same name and some same dialogs of Tarantino's character in "Birthday" yet here Clarence is the one of the birthday (and his last name ain't Pool), then the one who is going to receive something that tastes like a peach from his best friend, or better said from his boss since apparently he has no friends. Clarence is a guy who will f*** all of his possibilities to make out with a nice chick by inviting her to a Kung Fu night at the cinema ("you wanna take me to a Kung Fu movie?", asks the probable date of our hero and he f****** gains us more yet and certainly not her once he responds to her question, he goes like: "three Kung Fu movies"), and who will be in his birthday, just like every year, having a good time at the cinema (fortunately the DVD of The Street Fighter is there on my shelf just waiting!) but then it happens, a dream comes true, it's paid but nevertheless it's a dream come true! Patricia Arquette for your birthday! And the dream goes on and on: true romance, wedding, love tattoo, Elvis but also lots of violence, the clerk of a comic book store is now a pimp f***** (you gotta love Gary Oldman in this one!), what love makes...
Anyway, for me with True Romance we don't have a film that has some parts that really stands out as the better ones. Is not like once they, Clarence and his wife, Patricia Arquette's character, Alabama, arrive to Los Angeles (that is like the second part of the film) the film is better or worse. Is more like, we have good and not so good moments during the whole film. Some of the performances are not quite convincing and some scenes should have been better (for instance the final confrontation between practically everybody at a hotel room could have been much more exciting and tense). Going back to the performances, well as you know we have a cast full of stars: from Dennis Hooper to Brad Pitt passing through Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Walken (and for the TV fans we have Tony Soprano, as a mafioso that will make us see another side of the peach Alabama, and Berta from Two and a Half Men. Oh and for us The Wire fans there's Paul Ben-Victor, aka: Spiros Vondas, also as a mafioso). Seeing the film in 2009 is of course seeing a film full of real Hollywood stars yet is not seeing a film full of truly great acting. All of them are okay and most of them have at least a memorable bit. Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper stands out for the part in which we confirm two things and both Brad Pitt (minor role but very funny and quite relevant even though he never goes out of his place) and Gary Oldman delivers a lot of fun... the rest, well like I said they all are okay (it's nice having Elvis, by the way).
And just like its performances for me True Romance is not a truly brilliant masterpiece (or a film I would like to watch again and again) but a fun ride nevertheless.