True Romance

I made my wife watch this film Saturday night. She’d rather have been watching HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS, but in my sickness she let me chose. How nice of her, right? I forgot how violent this film really was. And there are several scenes that I wished she didn’t have to set through and listen to. Especially the foul language throughout, she pointed that out to me fairly quick. I guess I’ve just become somewhat desensitized to it, but after she pointed it out I caught every word for the remainder of the picture. HER take on the film – “there are some parts I did like.” So that leads me to believe that the majority of the time she was trying to run out of the room because of lack of felt involvement with the film and its characters. I couldn’t be further from that.

True Romance Trailer

So with this all-star cast onscreen and off, how could you go wrong? This is the first screenplay that Quentin Tarantino sold to Hollywood and it’s definitely very reminiscent of his style. Tony Scott, legendary director, directed it. And some of the actors included: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, James Gandolphini, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, and Christopher Wlaken, with many, many more that I couldn’t name off the top of my head. The film is jam packed with talent. And it features one of my favorite Walken sayings of all time: "I'm the angel of death, and I'm in a vendetta mood..." So excellent.

Real quick synopsis of the story: Christian Slater meets Alabama, a newly made hooker, and then fall for each other. They run off to Hollywood after Christian showdowns with Alabama’s pimp and mistakenly takes a suitcase full of pure cocaine instead of her clothes. Their goal in Hollywood is to sell the coke and live their days of traveling and loving each other. Everything falls apart in California and they end up fighting for their lives. And there is even an epic, extremely stylized “shoot out” with several adjacent parties involved. I won’t give away the ending, but I like it. It’s a refreshing takeaway from a film that is extremely heavy.

However, there are a ton of moments full of all out hilarity. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, as it shouldn’t. We see all types of cinema wrapped up in this film. It follows a trajectory that we are all very familiar with and it’s comforting for the viewers. You can tell that Quentin really has a deep passion for classic American cinema, and meaty dialogue sequences (I guess that goes without saying when you talk about QT films). The relationship between Christian and Alabama reminded me of the one between Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in WILD AT HEART, David Lynch’s romantic cinematic adventure. In both relationships there is this odd connection that we really cannot comprehend, but what believe in its authenticity nonetheless. And it’s funny because my wife and I also watched WILD AT HEART together, boy that was a mistake. Jeez.

This is probably my favorite Tony Scott and QT film. It’s sincere and moving and a fun ride. I loved that they shot it in Detroit, my hometown, and used a lot of natural backdrops of the cityscape throughout the film. The characters are so unique and interesting that one cannot help but enjoy watching them runaround in their maze and the story is solid. Probably not a great “romantic” film to watch with your loved one (as I found out), but a great film either way.

Rating: 8.75/10