the best Tarantino movie not made by Tarantino

Rating: 9/10 (14 June 2013)

I believe that there is such a genre called 'the Tarantino movies'. They have a story which is usually a gangster story, but not necessarily. Men in the story are teenagers or they all have teenagers minds, they are addicted to comics and pulp fiction, they love cinema if cinema was invented when the action takes place, there must be a scene in a cinema theater or at least in front of a TV set in these films. Girls are gorgeous and hookers. Morality plays an important role, but is of a special kind. There is a lot of violence in this films, so well filmed that viewers know it's not true and they have fun watching it. Martial arts are the real art.
Some of the Tarantino films are made by Quentin Tarantino. Some other not. 'True Romance' is not, but it's written by Tarantino, it was made 20 years ago but looks as fresh as if it was made yesterday, which shows that the genre beyond other qualities also has the one of aging nicely. It's a gangster story, it's a love story, it's a crime comedy about a young couple semi-willingly becoming murderers and unwillingly becoming drug dealers, it's a road movie, it's a movie about Hollywood. And it's fun to watch.
There are so many good things in this film that I have a hard time picking which one to list. Dialogs and the musical score (Hans Zimmer - see the list of the films he composed for at IMDb and you will understand why you loved even more some of the best films in Hollywood in the last 30 years) are exquisite. Acting is stellar with the lead exception of Christian Slater which I simply cannot force myself to like. Lucky me, he is paired in the film with Patricia Arquette, and then we have Dennis Hopper, Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Christopher Walke, Gary Oldman ... wow ... each of them in supporting roles hard to forget.
The director of this film is Tony Scott, who died last year. He was among these directors who would never get an Oscar because he just made the films that pleased the crowds. 'True Romance' is however much more than a crowd-pleaser, it may be T.Scott's best and one of the best Tarantino films ever made.