“Staff Picks” is a deeper look into movies that we love here at Video CULTure. Each edition of this column will focus on a single film that we think you should check out, either for the first time or for a long-overdue revisit.
By Patrick Bartlett (Twitter: @alleywaykrew)
If we’re being honest, most of the movies that are considered to be great romances these days aren’t really. Your average multiplex rom-com is as formulaic and genuinely boring as a bad slasher movie. However, my favorite story of romance is anything but boring. It’s Tony Scott & Quentin Tarantino at arguably the peak of their powers joining forces to bring the world the wonder that is “True Romance”.
Seriously. Let that sink in. A script by Quentin Tarantino before he had fully broken through as the auteur writer-director he’s known as today and Tony Scott during his most consistent period of directing. On top of that, you have a cast lead by Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette but also including Dennis Hopper, James Gandolfini, Christopher Walken, Michael Rapaport, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman and more that I could name but I think my point is pretty obvious. The level of talent in front of and behind the camera is genuinely staggering. Having said that, I’m sure that there are some people reading this that haven’t seen “True Romance”. Since I’m hoping that reading this will lead them to do so, I’m going to try to stay away from any really big reveals.
Before I even get into the plot, I want to mention the way the movie came to be. In the early ’90s, Quentin Tarantino had scripts for this and “Reservoir Dogs” written and ready to be turned into films. Tony Scott wanted to make both. Tarantino was unwilling to give up the latter and wanted to direct that one himself but was willing to let Scott do “True Romance”. The first thing Scott did was changed the nonlinear structure that would later become a hallmark of Tarantino’s work to a more traditionally linear narrative structure. He also wanted to change the ending. Tarantino’s feeling was that it was Scott’s movie and gave him his blessing. The result is magic. I mean that basically literally. For all intents and purposes, this is a fairy tale. This legitimately is a true romance. That’s not to say that it couldn’t be classified as a gritty film. It contains sex and drugs and violence galore but that’s really not the point. It’s a film that despite it having its structure changed into something more straightforward, you don’t know all the plot beats from the second you start watching.
Before you even see Christian Slater’s character of Clarence, you hear him talking about Elvis. That opening monologue and the way he interacts with the woman in a bar he’s speaking to tell you everything you need to know about him. While it seems like it’s just the same kind of random dialogue that Tarantino (in character as Mr. Brown) delivered at the beginning of “Reservoir Dogs” discussing Madonna, it lets you know right away that this is a guy who loves passionately. It also lets you know from the way the conversation goes that he doesn’t completely know how to interact with those around him. The woman he’s speaking to clearly is not into it and she turns down his invitation, leaving him to go to a Sonny Chiba triple feature by himself. While he’s sitting almost completely alone in the theater though, a woman named Alabama spills her popcorn all over him. They end up watching the triple feature together and upon her suggestion, go to get pie afterward. Appropriate sparks fly. After a stop at the comic book store he works at, they end up back at his apartment to engage in your almost standard Tony Scott blue-lit love scene. It’s discovered after said scene that Alabama is a call girl hired as a birthday gift by Clarence’s boss. The problem for her is that she actually fell in love with him that night. It doesn’t seem like it should be one because he confesses the same feelings to her. However, a problem still exists because as a call girl, there’s a pimp to deal with.
That pimp, who is played absolutely masterfully by Gary Oldman, also stole about a half-million dollars worth of uncut cocaine from the local criminal kingpin recently. When Clarence goes to get Alabama’s things from Oldman’s character and free her from any hold he may have over her, things erupt into violence and while he thinks he’s leaving with a suitcase full of clothing, he’s actually leaving with the cocaine. From there, Clarence hatches a plan to use the drugs to set him and Alabama up for life. He goes to his father, a former cop, to find out if the local police force is onto him. His father lets them know that they’re not, so Clarence & Alabama go to California to visit Clarence’s childhood best friend who is an up and coming actor living out there. What he doesn’t know is that the gangsters that the drugs were stolen from are right behind him and want them back.
I’m going to leave the plot there because if you haven’t seen the film, you owe it to yourself to know as little as possible about how all of that comes together. If you’ve seen the film, you owe yourself a rewatch. The easiest selling point is that even though I described the movie as a fairy tale, nothing about it seems too far out of real life. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette feel like real people that would be lucky to find each other. The rest of the cast, whether it’s someone like Rapaport’s stoner roommate played by Brad Pitt or Clarence’s recovering alcoholic father brought to life by Dennis Hopper…they all feel like people you know or at the very least like people you could meet. That’s what makes even the most bombastic scenes and plot points feel plausible. Despite how beautiful Tony Scott makes everything look, it’s not all that far from being the world we live in.
I believe it was on Tarantino’s DVD commentary where he talks about how he’s been asked if he’d ever do a romantic movie. He mentioned this film. They said they were talking about something without violence. He was pretty offended because he knows the same thing that I do. Yes, the film is a hard R. There’s the aforementioned sex and drugs and violence. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a romantic film. “True Romance” is just what the title says it is. The plot of the film might not be a situation that you ever want to find yourself in but at the very least, a love like Clarence and Alabama’s is something everyone should aspire to and definitely worth more of your time than most traditional romances.
To find out where this film is available to stream, click here: Just Watch