The Tarantino Pentathlon Part 3 - By his hand, but not through his eyes: True Romance

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2004)

It all depends on your definition of Romance

After the surprise success of Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino managed to get another of his writing efforts made into a film and the result, which is called True Romance, features quite a lot of blood, profanity and some strange dialog. True Romance is basically a romantic thriller and by that I mean romantic in the really broad sense, because for most people romantic is when you have a candle lit dinner under the stars. The main characters in this film though, Clarence (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette), do not do that sort of stuff and I must say that, although I understand their feelings for each other, they really have a screwed up definition of the word romance.

The thrilling element of the film comes from the fact, that almost throughout the entire film, Clarence and Alabama are hunted by a bunch gangsters who want to kill them. Now Clarence and Alabama are no angels, but when they are not in the criminal circle both of them are very open and pretty cool, so not matter what happens, you start to like them and feel for them. This enables the film to maintain a pretty high level of thrill throughout, except for the scenes where nothing of that tension shines through and it is as if Clarence and Alabama have a life without worries and this is what gives True Romance a weird, yet original touch. I do not know if this touch made the film worse than it could have been, but I certainly cannot imagine the film without it.

There are some similarities between True Romance and Reservoir Dogs. First of all, the events in True Romance also happen in a criminal milieu. Second of all, there is quite a lot of profanity and blood. And third of all, there is (as in Reservoir Dogs) some strange dialog, which I think only Tarantino could have produced. I mean everybody who has seen Reservoir Dogs remembers a couple of crazy dialogs from that film, like the scene in which all of the guys are talking about the meaning of the song Like a Virgin' or the scene in which the nick-names' are given to the gangsters. True Romance features a couple of dialogs like that also, for instance right in the beginning, when Clarence talks about Elvis to some blond in a bar or when Clarence's dad (Dennis Hopper) tells some gangster from Sicily, where his ancestors come from. I enjoyed those dialogs and I think together with the ending monologue by Alabama, those are probably the best lines in the film.

Overall, this is not a bad film, but it seems to lack that extra something. I feel, that the viewer is not sucked into the story enough and I also feel, there are some scenes which need some work, for they feel awkward or are unnecessary bloody and / or emotional. Those scenes include the interrogation scene with Dennis Hopper, the last scene with James Gandolfini and the last scene with Chris Penn. Don't get me wrong, this is by all means a good effort, but it is not good. Maybe Tarantino should be the only one allowed to direct Tarantino stories.

7 out of 10