"True Romance" was cute until it wasn't

Rating: 2/10 (1 June 2020)

"True Romance" starts out peculiar enough to make it a tad unique and special. An Elvis loving comicbook store manager named Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) has a rendezvous with a woman named Alabama (Patricia Arquette). What seemed like a happenstance sexual encounter was really a pay-for-sex transaction set up by Clarence's boss. What could not have been known is that they would fall in love and get married the next day. That was as cute as it got, and IMO, as good as it got.
It only devolved from there.
Though Alabama was now Mrs. Worley and had no intentions of ever going back to being a "call girl," Clarence couldn't release the thought of her ex-pimp, Drexl (Gary Oldman). So groused was he by the thought of her pimp, he decided to go kill him. Why? For violence. This was a Tarantino written movie after all, so we got plenty of violence and plenty white people uttering the N-word.
Clarence, in an effort to get Alabama's belongings after blowing away Drexl and his bodyguard, actually took a suitcase full of uncut cocaine. So, after having become a killer, Clarence also became a drug dealer and the whole affair was "so cool" to Alabama, who was mentally stuck in kindergarten.
As all of these different characters entered the movie in one way or another-- being connected to the drugs in one way or another-- I knew that there would be a lot of blood and that Clarence and Alabama would live HEA (happily ever after).
That's precisely what happened as a henchman (James Gandolfini) couldn't dispose of a petite blond. As an actor (Bronson Pinchot) couldn't help but expose all the coke he had. As a producer (Saul Rubinek) couldn't help but buy a suitcase full of coke. As a police squad bungled a drug bust. As a mob walked in on said drug bust to turn it into the OK Corral. And as a heartbroken near-widow decided to shoot a cop. It was a bloody disgusting finale that was supposed to be poetic and romantic in its bloodiness.
I do believe you can have righteous, poetic, or even romantic bloodshed. This wasn't it and it just made me befuddled as to how it has a 7.9 rating.