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| Getting blown on the road when the cops show up. |
Dir. Tony Scott
A quintessential 90s film, True Romance offers a gritty alternative to the wholesome grunginess
of contemporaneous movies like Reality
Bites (1994) and Singles (1992).
Written by Quentin
Tarantino, True Romance is a
launchpad for the legendary body of work that will follow his seminal
directorial stint with Reservoir Dogs
(1992), released the year prior. Though he’s not in the director’s chair in
this instance, Tarantino literally writes himself into the character of protagonist
Clarence Worley (Christian Slater), with
his professed love for comic books, Sonny
Chiba kung-fu flicks, and a geekiness that belies a violent predisposition.
Tony Scott delivers
a visually attractive film, the exterior sequences of snow-kissed Detroit being
a prime example of how the utterly drab is rendered somehow compelling. As part
of his star-filled cast, Brad Pitt—who
plays the ultimate, couch-bound stoner, Floyd—is enjoying a meteoric rise to
stardom, in between his roles in A River
Runs Through It (1992) and Interview
with the Vampire (1994).
Not to be outdone, Hollywood veterans Dennis Hopper (as cop-dad Clifford Worley) and Christopher Walken (as mobster Vincenzo Coccotti) flex serious
acting chops. Hopper’s Sicilian monologue, while skirting the line of what’s
considered offensive, is a classic moment in indie film.
Reformed, one-time prostitute, Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette) shines as half of
the anti-romantic couple that is the focus of Tarantino’s version of a
(blood-drenched) love story. As Alabama’s new love, Worley takes it upon
himself to liberate her from her pimp, the dreadlocked drug-dealer Drexl Spivey
(Gary Oldman), a cut-throat wigger
of entertainingly psychotic proportions.
True to form, Samuel
L. Jackson enjoys another all-too-brief cameo. As two-bit criminal Big Don,
he gets shot and killed in the same scene he first appears in.
Playing the gold-suit-wearing ghost of Elvis, Val Kilmer turns in a creepy
performance, appearing to Worley in mirrors and egging him on to violence. The
motif continues with Worley adopting gold Elvis shades and later naming his first-born
after the iconic rock and roller.
It’s part and parcel of the snide humor that abounds, in
particular surrounding the Hollywood players who Worley’s friend, Dick Ritchie
(Michael Rapaport), as an actor
trying to make it in L.A., is keen to impress.
The result is the ultimate coke deal gone bad. The buyer,
Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek), is a
ludicrously over-the-top Hollywood producer, but it’s his assistant Elliot
Blitzer (Bronson Pinchot) who gets busted.
After getting pulled over for swerving—due to getting a blowjob while
driving—Blitzer gets in a petty fight with his girlfriend, who, refusing to
hide his cocaine from the cops, sends the bag of uncut blow powdering indelibly
across his face.
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