True Romance (1993) is an American romantic crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, director of Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II. It stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette with an ensemble cast.
The title and plot is a play on the titles of romance comic books with their overwrought love stories -- very popular in earlier decades -- such as "True Life Secrets," "True Stories of Romance", "Romance Tales," "Untamed Love" and "Strange Love."
True Romance was a breakthrough of sorts for Tarantino. It was his first screenplay for a major motion picture. He had hoped to direct the movie himself, but ended up selling the script.
Also notable is the film's score by Hans Zimmer; its leitmotif is based on a familiar piece by Carl Orff.
Plot
Comic-book store clerk and movie buff Clarence Worley watches a Sonny Chiba triple feature at a Detroit movie theater on his birthday. Here he meets Alabama Whitman, an attractive young woman he takes home afterward.
After sex, she tearfully confesses that she is a call girl hired by Clarence's boss as a birthday present. She also confesses that she has fallen in love with Clarence in a short time. He has also fallen for her, so they marry the next day.
Clarence is concerned about Alabama's volatile pimp, Drexl Spivey. He is visited by an apparition of his idol, Elvis Presley, who tells him that killing Drexl would make the world a better place.
After assuring Alabama he is only going to Drexl's to get her things, Clarence confronts the intimidating Drexl and tells him to leave Alabama alone from now on. Drexl and his right-hand man Marty attack and subdue Clarence, take his wallet to find out where he lives and threaten to find Alabama there. Clarence manages to draw a gun and kill them both. He grabs a bag which he assumes belongs to Alabama and leaves.
He confesses to Alabama that he killed Drexl, which she tearfully finds "so romantic!" Opening the suitcase, the two find it is filled with stolen cocaine.
Deciding to leave town for Los Angeles, the couple first visits Clarence's father, Clifford Worley, a security guard and ex-cop. Clarence asks to use his police connections to find out if he is in the clear regarding Drexl's murder. His father learns the police assume the murder was a drug-related thing.
Clarence and Alabama take off for L.A., where they look up Clarence's old friend Dick Ritchie, an aspiring actor. Back home, however, Clarence's father is ambushed by a gangster named Vincenzo Coccotti and his men who want their drugs back. Clarence's dad stalls for as long as he can before accepting that he is going to die anyway, whereupon he tells a graphic story that insults Coccotti and his Sicilian descent. He is killed. One of the gangsters finds a note on the fridge giving Clarence's whereabouts at Dick's home address.
Clarence plans to use Dick's contacts with an actor named Elliot to sell the drugs to a wealthy movie producer, Lee Donowitz. But when Elliot is arrested by the police for drug possession, he uses his knowledge of Clarence's drug deal to try to escape prison time by wearing a wire for the cops.
In the meantime, while Clarence is away getting food, Alabama is found by one of Coccotti's most ruthless henchmen, Virgil. He thinks she's cute, but nonetheless viciously beats her to find the cocaine. Alabama bravely fights back and amazingly manages to kill him. Clarence comes home and drives her away.
On the day of the deal, detectives Nicholson and Dimes stage a sting operation to nail Lee, the filmmaker. At the same time, Coccotti's men arrive at Lee's hotel to retrieve the drugs after finding out where the deal is taking place from Dick's stoned roommate Floyd.
Clarence, Alabama, Dick and a terrified Elliot arrive in Lee Donowitz's hotel room to begin negotiations. Lee takes a liking to Clarence and is happy to go through with the deal. He is then ambushed by the cops and the gangsters at the same time, bursting into the room.
In the middle of a Mexican standoff between the cops, robbers and Lee's heavily armed bodyguards, Lee realizes that Elliot has betrayed him. He scalds Elliot with a pot of hot coffee, triggering a massive outburst of gunfire. Lee, police officers, the gangsters and the bodyguards are killed.
Dick tosses the bag of drugs in the air as a distraction and flees. Clarence suffers a grazing bullet wound to his eye when he exits the bathroom and appears to be dead, devastating Alabama. A lone remaining Italian kills detective Dimes just after Dimes shoots Boris, one of Lee's bodyguards. In the alternate version, Alabama kills Dimes in retaliation for the wounding of Clarence.
Clarence revives. He is only partially blinded. Alabama leads him from the hotel and they escape as more police descend.
On a beach in Mexico, a healing Clarence and Alabama are shown as a happy family, playing with a son whom they have named Elvis.
Cast
Reception
Reviews for the film were largely positive. Out of the 43 reviews collected on Rotten Tomatoes, 39 are positive, giving it an overall "fresh" rating of 91%.[1]
Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star called it "one of the most dynamic action films of the 1990s."[2] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it three stars, saying "it's Tarantino's gutter poetry that detonates True Romance. This movie is dynamite."[3]
Roger Ebert gave the film a somewhat mixed review, but also said that "the energy and style of the movie are exhilarating", and that "the supporting cast is superb, a roll call of actors at home in these violent waters: Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper and Brad Pitt, for example."[4] A negative review by The Washington Post's Richard Harrington claimed the film was "stylistically visceral" yet "aesthetically corrupt".[5]
Film critic Richard Roeper named True Romance one of his all-time favorite films.
References
External links
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Films directed by Tony Scott |
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Loving Memory (1969)
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Films of Quentin Tarantino |
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| Abandoned |
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