Tries a bit too hard but is still enjoyable

Rating: Null/10 (1 February 2004)

When Clarence meets Alabama they hit if off immediately and fall in love. So when she reveals she is a call girl hired to get him laid on his birthday it doesn't matter, and they get married. Clarence decides to make Alabama's break from the job official by collecting her stuff from her pimp. However when that meeting turns into a bloodbath he mistakenly picks up a suitcase full of drugs. The pair say their goodbyes and make off with the drugs to sell them in LA, however the drugs leave a track behind them, one that both the mob and the police follow.
In the height of Tarantino fever, several of his scripts got quickly dusted off and handed to big name directors in an effort to capitalise on the public flavour for his dialogue and mix of pop culture references and violence. True Romance was one such film and, in fairness it does fairly well to emulate the films of the writer himself - big cast, snappy dialogue, violent shoot outs and so on. In fact the film lifts his style to the extent that it even rips off (or homage's) other films - most notably in the theme music that is almost a photocopy of Badlands.
The film wears this a little too obviously and clearly is trying very hard to be Tarantino-esque, most of the time it works out but at times I just wanted it to relax a little bit. The plot is pure geek wish fulfilment mixed with crime thriller; a beautiful woman picks up a comic-book fan in a cinema showing a martial arts triple bill! It works reasonably well by filling the scenes with colourful characters, pop culture dialogue and violence - at times it gets a bit much and I wanted characters to talk normally without a wall-to-wall soundtrack just some of the time; however it does have some very good scenes at times. Stand outs are the scene with Walken and Hopper and the scene where Alabama takes a beating, but, if you like Tarantino's films then you should be happy with most of this.
The style of the film is a little uneven. As I said, it is really trying hard to be a Tarantino film but at the same time you can see Scott's glossy action-movie hands all over it! The two don't really fit together all the time and would honestly rather have had a different director at the helm. The cast however is as deep as Tarantino films were drawing at the time - everyone wanted the chance to be cool! Slater is cool and fits the role well and even Arquette manages to be quite good, although her narration is about as flat and dull as they come. It is the support cast though, who the film belongs to. The film has roles for a variety of people whether it be non-speaking roles or one or two scenes. In a way this is a bad thing because some great actors have nothing to do and are wasted but overall the effect is good and each cameo makes an impact. When a cast includes Val Kilmer, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Bronson Pinchot, Samuel L Jackson, Victor Argo, Michael Rapaport, Saul Rubinek, James Gandolfini, Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore it has to be at least worth checking out!
Despite the fact that Tarantino's words in another directors hands doesn't feel that right, and the fact that Scott's very slick Hollywood direction doesn't quite match with Tarantino's much less establishment writing this is still a good film. As you'd expect it rips off every `lovers on the run' movie that you'll have seen but it still is funny and slick enough to stand up for the rather generous running time. It may bottle the brave ending of the original script but it has some very good scenes along the way.