Tarantino "Lite"

Rating: 9/10 (15 January 2011)

I refer to "Lite" as in a Tarantino movie with more room to breathe, where not everyone is a murderous gangster and a road movie with warmth and humour. Tarantino's screenplay absolutely bristles with electric energy.
True Romance is one of my favourite films and I'm now onto the Director's Cut, that director being Tony Scott. What makes True Romance work for me is the central casting of Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, neither obvious candidates for such; he a geeky, ever cheerful comic-book store clerk and she a kooky, but endearingly naive hooker who he 'accidentally' meets in a back-street cinema.
Clarence (Slater) has quietly divine interventions with Elvis (Val Kilmer), who guides him in mirrors of washrooms, and falls head over heels with the deliciously anatomically pleasing Alabama (Arquette). They kick around, watching kungfu videos, not particularly giving much of a damn about anything.
When Clarence hears of her past - and her vicious pimp (an intensely psychotic Gary Oldman, in dreadlocks) and visits him, he ends up with far more than he ever bargained for.
A welcome, natural tone comes when the couple meet up with Dennis Hopper as Clarence's security guard (& ex police) father, keeping the film's feet on the ground. The setting - a solemnly industrial Detroit winter-land, contrasts with lusciously sunny madcap road trip to L.A, a suitcase of cocaine to sell to a producer 'friend' of an actor 'friend' of Clarence's, this actor thinking he has a major part in a film.
Hopper gets a not particularly welcome visit from the requisite Christopher Walken, as the 'owner' of the white stuff. That is pure Tarantino and a highlight for many lovers of the film.
After the two leads, my favourite is Brad Pitt as the permanently stoned slacker, friend of the actor friend of Clarence's who habitually watches TV all day and casually invites mobsters in to join him in his leisure pursuits and then tells them all they want to know, totally not thinking of the consequences for his buddies. A slimline "Soprano", James Gandolfini who lays in wait for Atlanta gets the fight of his life and this truly becomes suspenseful and blood-splattering violent. Meanwhile Clarence, still on 7th heaven about his marriage is getting the biggest cheeseburger ever for them both as a celebration.
Black humour in abundance mocks Hollywood and its system, whilst cop Christopher Penn wires up another actor in the most awkward of places, who's been caught foul of the law when his dope literally ends up all over his face. It does get a little mad and bad and this is about the only part I think that lessens the film. A traditional shoot-it-up, bullet spraying ending leaves our couple running for their lives once again.
Do they live happily ever after? This is Tarantino, not Disney, so you'll have to find out for yourself.
A sublimely cool Chris Isaak song unrolls with the end credits. Overall, a very satisfying film that hits so many buttons - sharp script, black humour, sex, bloody violence, sunshine, wit, drugs, daft people, cool and clever people and a nice load of A-listers all doing spot-on roles with enthusiasm and skill.