Action, Humour & Terrific Entertainment

Rating: 9/10 (6 September 2012)

"True Romance" is a high speed crime thriller with plenty of action, romance and dark humour and a collection of characters that make every scene bristle with excitement and interest. The plot is fascinating throughout, the dialogue is witty and entertaining and the star-studded cast deliver some great performances. A story about a young couple on the run may not seem strikingly original but this one is told with so much flamboyance, dynamism and panache that it's completely irresistible and tremendously enjoyable to watch.
Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) is totally obsessed with comic books, movies and Elvis Presley and seems to have very few friends. Whilst he's spending his birthday alone at a cinema watching a Sonny Chiba triple feature, he gets into conversation with an attractive blonde called Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette) and they end up spending the night together at Clarence's place. It later emerges that Alabama is a call girl who'd been paid to entertain Clarence by the man who owns the book store where he works. Despite this unpromising start to their relationship, Clarence and Alabama fall in love and get married the following day.
Clarence is a guy who periodically has conversations with Elvis' ghost who acts as a mentor to him and during one such conversation Elvis advises him of the need to kill Alabama's pimp, a dreadlocked sadist called Drexl (Gary Oldman). After telling Drexl about Alabama's change of status and that she won't be working for him any more, things soon descend into violence and Clarence kills the pimp and one of his henchmen before taking, what he believes to be, Alabama's suitcase of clothes with him. When the couple discover that the case actually contains $500,000 worth of uncut cocaine, they decide to leave Detroit and head off to California.
Clarence plans to use his old friend, an aspiring actor called Dick Ritchie (Michael Rapaport), to make the necessary connections to a Hollywood producer who is likely to be interested in purchasing the coke. Unfortunately, a number of complications develop during the setting up of the deal and things get difficult as it soon becomes clear that a couple of L.A. detectives as well as the gangsters who owned the cocaine are on their trail.
Quentin Tarantino's script is an outstanding feature of this movie and contains all the intensity and sparkle that normally characterises his work as well as a good supply of witty one-liners. There are three scenes that particularly stand out. The first is one in which Clarence's father gets interrogated by a high-ranking Sicilian gangster, the second is a violent confrontation involving Alabama and a hit-man and the third is a Mexican standoff which brings together , Clarence and his associates, the gangsters, the police and the Hollywood producer and his bodyguards in a situation where tensions are running extremely high and everyone is heavily armed. These scenes are all incredibly violent but, especially in the first and last scenes, the way in which humour is used is both skillful and very effective.
The entire cast in this exceptionally entertaining movie is excellent with Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken and Gary Oldman providing the most impressive performances and Brad Pitt standing out as Dick's perpetually stoned roommate.