True Romance (1993) is probably as close as we are ever going to
get to a comic book movie from Quentin Tarantino. Directed by the late great
Tony Scott and based on the first script Tarantino wrote for a major motion
picture, it is set in the real world with real human beings, but everything
they do and accomplish seems to be straight out of comic book panels. The
protagonist starts off as an ordinary young man with a love of Elvis Presley
and martial arts movies, and ends up being the hero of his own blood-soaked
tale of improbable romance, drug deals, and greed in Hollywood. Also, the movie
is pretty damn romantic in its own way.
Oddly enough I
sort of read this movie before actually seeing it. Back in 2005 I went on a
school trip from Quebec City to New York City by bus and while in the Big Apple
I of course got a few souvenirs. Some people buy postcards or snowglobes, I
bought a book called Quintessential
Tarantino by Edwin Page, which chronicles Tarantino’s work from his early
days to Kill Bill. It goes into some
pretty thorough details about everything he has written and directed and there
is of course a chapter on True Romance.
Unfortunately it gives away the whole plot, so the story was spoiled by the
time I got the DVD, but it is one thing to read this story and see it acted
out. Case in point: the Sicilian scene between Christopher Walken and Dennis
Hopper.
Tarantino has
said this is his most auto-biographical movie and I believe that up to the
point when the bullets start to fly. Christian Slater channels him as Clarence
Worley, a young man who can talk his heart out as long as the subject matters
are either comic books, movies, or Elvis Presley. Clarence loves the King so
much there are scenes throughout the movie where Val Kilmer shows up as Elvis to
give Clarence some life advice. Unfortunately Clarence’s love of Kung Fu movies
and the fact he makes very little money working at a comic book store in cold
Detroit does not bode well for his financial or romantic future.
Enter Patricia
Arquette as Alabama, a prostitute who has been hired by Clarence’s boss to give
him a good time on his birthday. Surprisingly she is not putting on an act when
she says she is having a good time with him, which is plausible: women can like
Kung Fu movies and comics too. The moment this story veers into fantasyland is
when she tells Clarence what she does for a living, says she has fallen in love
with him, and they decide to get married. These things all happen in the span
of one night. A giant car sign in the background clearly sets the movie’s tone
with the words “Don’t let the dust settle.”
Wishing to prove
himself as a man and make sure Alabama is out of prostitution for good Clarence
decides to visit her pimp to let him know she is now happily married. The pimp
is question, Drexl Spivey (Gary Oldman), is not only a violent guy, but also
one of those white guys who likes to grow dreadlocks and pretend he’s black. In
real life Drexl would beat up Clarence and drag Alabama kicking and screaming
back into his business, yet in this movie Clarence gets the drop on him in a
tension-filled confrontation.
The rest of the
action is put into motion after Clarence walks out of Drexl’s place with a
device commonly used in Tarantino films: a container filled with valuables. In Reservoir Dogs it was a bag of diamonds,
in Pulp Fiction a suitcase filled
with a shiny light, and in Jackie Brown a
bag filled with dollar bills. Clarence believes he has a suitcase filled with
Alabama’s clothes. What he has taken from Drexl is actually a fortune’s worth
of cocaine.
Having heard
movie stars love to pay big money for white powder, Clarence and Alabama decide
to head to sunny Hollywood and sell the whole case in one big sale before
jetting off to the tropics. Despite the fact Clarence has no idea of how to
sell cocaine, he proves very adept at talking in codes with a big-shot producer
(Saul Rubinek) and setting up the deal of a lifetime. In a matter of days the
geeky boy with no girlfriend has morphed into a gun-toting badass, with villains
armed to the teeth chasing him. All that, and no bite from a radioactive
spider.
In addition to
the delicious dialogue from Tarantino and the expert direction from Tony Scott,
the film is filled with actors at the top of their game. In fact there are so
many good actors in True Romance some
of them have almost nothing to do. Samuel L. Jackson shows up just to get shot
in a scene that introduces Drexl, and Brad Pitt mostly sits on a couch getting
high while people ask him where to find Clarence and Alabama. Then there is
James Gandolfini, years before The
Sopranos, as a mob enforcer who gets into a very bloody confrontation with
Alabama in a hotel room.
From the moment
the movie’s couple get together everything becomes highly improbable, but you
just don’t care. Slater and Arquette have such great chemistry that you can’t
help but root for them, no matter how many bodies they leave in their path. This
may very well be the ultimate male fantasy for every music, film, or comic book
geek out there. It doesn’t hurt that it is loads of fun, and yes, romantic.
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