True Romance
Starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val
Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Produced by Gary Barber, Samuel Hadida, Steve Perry, Bill Unger
Directed by Tony Scott
Released by Warner Bros.
Rated R
1993
***
True Romance begins exactly like a Tarantino movie should: a
rockabilly voice calling out over the opening blackness of credits,
followed by Christian Slater's hilarious opening monologue about the
greatness of Elvis. But then there's a fade-out, and the bulk of the
credits unroll over Hans Zimmer's mildly obnoxious bouncy xylophone-
powered score - sure enough, it's "A Tony Scott Film." And that's a
shame - as a screenplay, this is, structure and dialogue wise, as good
as anything Tarantino's ever done. What's missing is the odd and
compelling gravitas which he lends his films, which perversely makes
them both perfect pop films and much more - almost the archetypal
embodiment of genre film. But no, this is a Tony Scott film, which
means it's blockbuster time (or was intended to be - the $12.5 milion
production fell just short of breaking even), and his muddy imprints
are all over the damn thing stylistically, most noticably in the sex
scene, which brings back the laughably strong blue background lighting
from Top Gun - so strong you can see tongues enter mouths in
silhouette. It works better here though, since no one is supposed to
take anything seriously. But then later in the movie it turns out
you're supposed to care about the characters, as nasty slow-burning
hotel-room confrontations put them all in jeapordy, and it just
doesn't work. Stranded somewhere between post-modern disposability and
old-fashioned Hollywood "character development" (e.g., having
characters say things like "Don't you die on me"), it turns out to be
an unfeasible mix.
But to be fair, some of the things which work best about this movie
are distinctly Scott's contribution. The best scene in the movie, the
one which almost makes it mandatory viewing, is a showdown between
Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper, an iconic weirdo shoot-out with
almost as much heft as De Niro vs. Pacino in Heat. Tarantino would've
insisted on Robert Forster taking Walken's part, which might have
made for a better overall movie - but there's no way it could've have
matched the cult-classic brilliance of this scene. But mostly, the
best things in this movie are either thanks to the brilliant cast
or to Tarantino's script. It's a goofy wish-fulfillment tale where a
comic-book/kung-fu geek (Slater, almost certainly standing in for
Tarantino) gets a hooker (Patricia Arquette) to fall in love with him.
He kills her pimp (the consistently amazing Gary Oldman, here embodying
the ultimate wigger) and they take off with half-a-mil worth of his
cocaine, to sell it in Hollywood and then take off for a lifelong
vacation. The course of true love runs about as smoothly as your
average cinematic drug deal.
So many things about True Romance are enjoyable - the breezy
opening hour, the offhand stoner comic genius of Brad Pitt (using a
honey bear as a bong), hearing Slater's enthusiastic telephone greeting
overlapped with the Big Bopper yowling out "Helloooooooo, baby!"
Tarantino fans will be rewarded by the final shootout, which features
the same kind of darkly co(s)mic symmetry as his other works. But there's
indiscriminate Hollywood schlock floating around as well, and not of
the kind which jibes with Tarantino's deadly serious aims. Despite
their cliched set-ups and characters, Pulp Fiction and his other
films, to lesser extents, infuse geniune humanity and emotional depth
into seemingly worthless material. What True Romance does is
to remove the heft and change it back to schlock - in the way that
Tony Scott treats violence, for example. Tarantino either shoots
straight-on for gut-level impact or obliquely, letting the sounds of
torture fill in the gory details. Scott just messes about with blood
packets and scissor impalements, though his handling of these valuable
tools will lead no one to confuse him with John Woo. To be fair, it's
not just Scott - there's a remarkably disingenous moment when Slater
rants about movies he doesn't like, concluding that Rio Bravo,
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly and so forth are "real" movies.
The list is a good one, but the purposeful omission of those Godard
movies which so influenced Tarantino seems like too blatant a bid not
to lose the audience.
Maybe those failings all have emerged in retrospect - before we knew
the shape of Tarantino things to come, this may have seemed like a
considerably fresher and more interesting blockbuster, the world of
action films not yet having become totally Tarantino-influenced. Large
chunks of this film work brilliantly - but not enough. Still, it's an
interesting look at how one of the most important Hollywood directors
of the 90s had an early screenplay partially fucked up by someone who
just didn't understand the depth of his vision.