As Quentin Tarantino gained buzz as the Gen-X auteur in the mid-’90s, “True Romance” (1993) was his secret film among my high school classmates. Everyone knew about his two directorial efforts, 1992’s “Reservoir Dogs” and 1994’s “Pulp Fiction.” But also, budding film geeks would point out, he wrote the screenplay for “True Romance.”
Slater, Arquette dodge the spotlight
The film is directed by Tony Scott, not exactly a minor name after “Top Gun” and the quotable “The Last Boy Scout,” but that’s how bright Tarantino’s star was shining. It even outshone the most loaded cast of the time, although I say “Romance” comes up just short of 1992’s “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
Originally written in linear (each event leads directly to the next) fashion by Tarantino, Scott adjusted it to nonlinear (we can cut between different, roughly simultaneous events), which audiences are more accustomed to. Still, “True Romance” retains some of that old-school linear feel because so many talented actors dominate their own scenes.
“True Romance” (1993)
Director: Tony Scott
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper
Granted, the narrative is always about the journey of Clarence (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette), who start off as an odd but genuine love match: As a secret birthday present, Clarence’s off-screen comic-shop boss buys the call girl Alabama for him. But, not cut out for this new call-girl gig, she falls in love with him right away.
This is not the healthiest message for young male viewers, but as cinematic fantasy, it’s transporting, helped by the striking location for Bama’s admission of love: a billboard that’s accessible from Clarence’s Detroit apartment window. Slater was a sure-fire movie star, and Arquette is dolled up with white-blonde hair and ruby lips, that classic look Gwen Stefani would soon adopt for music videos.
This is a core Nineties film – the soundtrack trucks in Soundgarden and Aerosmith – but also timeless (Clarence adores Elvis, and even hears imagined advice from him, like Woody Allen does from Bogart in “Play It Again, Sam”). As Scott shows off the Safari Inn and other gaudy, colorful slices of L.A., one thinks of double-billing this with “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”
Parade of small but great roles
“True Romance’s” events are grim – the newlyweds have accidentally stolen a suitcase of cocaine from the mob and now are on the run – but Scott and company strain to keep a quirky tone. Hans Zimmer’s xylophone score, making us think of a fairy tale, is perhaps the most incongruous yet appropriate since the zither music in “The Third Man.”
Slater and Arquette are fine, but it can’t be denied that “True Romance” is a veritable all-star roster of scene-stealers. Gary Oldman may or may not be the best actor of our time, but no one disappears into a role like he does; here, he’s dealer/pimp Drexl, who acts “black.” Funny-because-its-awkward racism (the kind Tarantino uniquely can get away with) also comes into play in a classic verbal showdown between Dennis Hopper as Clarence’s dad and Christopher Walken as Drexl’s boss.
And yet we perhaps still haven’t gotten to the most entertaining role. That might be Brad Pitt (just starting to steal the “blatantly-attractive-to-women movie star” title from Slater) as Floyd, the roommate of the friend of Clarence. He’s an innocent, totally stoned bystander to various groups seeking the location of Clarence. What initially seems like a one-scene cameo becomes funnier as can’t-give-a-care Floyd is continually paired with extremely focused professional killers in the drug game.
“True Romance” piles on so many great performances and individual scenes that the question of whether it’s a good movie gets overwhelmed. It’s an entertaining movie, no doubt. But it’s also a riff, like most Tarantino movies — this one particularly building from “Badlands.” It’s a choppy drug-mob fairy tale that wills itself to be entertaining, but I’m not sure it has much of a specific statement.
Tarantino, Scott and their collaborators recognize life is absurd (and violent – the violence is so extreme in certain sequences that some characters even laugh at it), so you might as well try to see it as a joke. Yet laughing at Clarence-and-Alabama would be like laughing at “Cinderella.”