A boy's dream

Rating: 6/10 (15 December 2000)

"True Romance" is a peculiar movie. While it caters to all the action-kinda-romance-kinda-comedy-kinda-immature movie clichées, it still manages to put on an entertaining, and in many ways original, show. This movie is a boy's dream (of a boy, let's say, between 13 and 25) since the lead character ("Clarence") gets to have a job which seems to amount to reading comic books all day long, gets to meet, and win, a knockout girl who just happens to have the same interests as he (i.e. comic books, kung-fu movies, Elvis, etc), gets to drive all the way from Detroit to Los Angeles with a case full of coke (which they "innocently" plan to have transformed into a case full of money), all the time outsmarting criminals and policemen alike just like in....that's right!: the movies. It's clearly evident that this screenplay has been written by "the one and only" (you can interpret that expression in any way you like) Quentin Tarantino as the characters discuss things like Elvis's good looks and bad TV shows with the same intensity as if their lives depended on it. Almost in spite of itself, though, this movie feels original. For example, the relationship of Clarence and Alabama feels quite original, genuine and even sexy. And then there is, of course, that outstanding "interrogation scene" with Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken. Clarence's father, played by Hopper, knows for sure that his last moment has come when he is captured and interrogated by the Mafia guys. He knows for certain that they are never going to let him walk. He knows that he's going to die, so he decides to keep his honor and integrity to the very last minute and tells Christopher Walken "the story about Sicilians' ancestry" which, of course, amounts to his very own death penalty. This scene is great, played by two great actors.