In Detroit, a lonely pop culture geek marries a call girl, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the owners of the cocaine, the Mob, track them down in an attempt to reclaim it.
I remember seeing “True Romance” at the cinema when I lived back in Dublin, Ireland, in November of 1993. I had seen the trailer, and while I was intrigued by its all-star cast, I honestly had no idea what to expect. After the movie, I was blown away. “True Romance” encompassed so many different genres; action, thriller, drama, and romance. I was a big Christian Slater fan after seeing his performances in “Heathers,” “Young Guns II,” and “Pump Up the Volume,” and I had the biggest crush on Patricia Arquette, having been introduced to her big-screen debut in “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” six years earlier so pairing them up together was cinematic heaven for me.
Slater plays Clarence Worley, an Elvis Presley and kung-fu film fanatic who runs a comic book store in Detroit. On his birthday, while attending a triple bill screening of “The Streetfighter,” “Return of the Streetfighter,” and “Sister Streetfighter” alone, he encounters Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette), a call girl who sits beside him and strikes up a conversation. Immediately smitten with her, at her request, he proceeds to tell her what’s happening in the film, and afterward, they return to Clarence’s apartment and make love into the early hours of the morning. Later, Alabama confesses that she didn’t meet him by chance but that Clarence’s boss paid her to meet and have sex with him for his birthday. He disregards her statement and tells her that he had the best night of his life, and they quickly fall in love.
After getting married a few days later, Clarence asks her for the address of her pimp, Drexl (Gary Oldman). Wanting to know why, he informs her that he wants to straighten things out with him so that they can both move on with their lives without fear of Drexl or his goons hounding them. When he arrives at Drexl’s location, Clarence tells him that he and Alabama are now married and want to move on with their lives. Drexl and his bodyguard attack Clarence, but he gets the upper hand and kills them both. He demands one of the other call girls grab all of Alabama’s personal belongings, and she hands him a suitcase, but when he returns home to Alabama, upon opening it, they are shocked to find the case is filled with large amounts of cocaine.
Clarence decides to move out to Los Angeles and hook up with his old friend Dick Ritchie (Michael Rappaport), an actor in the film industry. Dick reaches out to his friend Elliot Blitzer (Bronson Pinchot), an assistant to Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek), one of the biggest producers in Hollywood, and offers to sell him the entire case of cocaine for a very reasonable price. Unbeknownst to everyone, a big-time mobster back in Detroit, Blue Lou Boyle, has sent his consigliere, Vincenzo Coccotti (Christopher Walken), to track Clarence and Alabama down as the suitcase of cocaine is his; Drexl was just holding it for him. When Clarence, Alabama, Dick, and Elliot meet with Lee at the Ambassador Hotel to make the deal, the police and Coccotti’s crew appear and end up in a Mexican standoff, with our protagonists caught in the middle. Now, they must figure a way out before they wind up dead.
Tony Scott made a name for himself in the ’80s directing such classics as “Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “Days of Thunder,” and “The Last Boy Scout” in 1991, but I feel that “True Romance” was the last time Scott made a film that didn’t consist of his signature trademark frenetic camera style that accompanied all of his later work. Most filmmakers incorporate carefully composed shots to allow their audience to understand what is transpiring onscreen, but Scott began to integrate his movies with extremely fast-paced editing, flashy camera angles, hyperkinetic whip pans, slow motion, and zooms, blurs, and an overindulgence in the much-dreaded shaky cam. This technique threw “carefully composed shots” out the window in favor of more chaotic and disorderly camera angles. Mix these elements, and you have the perfect combination of sensory overload, something many people don’t appreciate in their films, including yours truly.
Director Paul Greengrass has harnessed the same elements in his films, most notably the last three Jason Bourne movies, stating that the chaotic shaky-cam approach is vital in representing what Bourne is experiencing internally. Still, many fans have publicly stated that they despise the technique as nothing more than a gimmick for lazy filmmaking. Michael Bay has also incorporated the same approach in many of his films, but Scott is credited with its creation.
Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette display undeniable onscreen chemistry, and the rapport and mutual understanding they share is something that seldom happens on the silver screen. We can believe a couple loves and cares for each other, but here, Slater and Arquette go beyond the romantic norm and the customary “I love you” that all couples exchange. When Clarence goes to see Drexl early in the film, and he insults Alabama and threatens to hurt her, Clarence comes to her defense and kills Drexl and his bodyguard. Later in the movie, Alabama returns to their hotel room alone only to be confronted by Virgil (James Gandolfini), one of Coccotti’s henchmen, who proceeds to beat her up, but when he threatens to kill Clarence upon his return, she becomes hysterical and lashes out at him, eventually gaining the upper hand and smashing his head into a pulp. Neither realized just how much they needed each other until they met.
“True Romance” was written by Quentin Tarantino before his breakout “Reservoir Dogs” and is a who’s who of A-list actors, some of who hadn’t made a big impact on Hollywood yet; Slater, Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Rapaport, James Gandolfini, Chris Penn, and Tom Sizemore. While Scott directed the film, Tarantino’s shocking violence, pop culture references, Mexican standoffs, and philosophical dialogue are prevalent throughout the entire movie. It’s interesting to imagine what “True Romance” might have looked like had Tarantino directed it, but one of the special features includes an “Alternate Ending” with commentary by Scott, and another with Tarantino. He explains that the alternate ending is what he would have personally gone with, where Clarence dies but expresses his admiration for Scott’s ending and how he wound up at that conclusion. Scott was firing on all cylinders here and made a film that will be remembered for generations.
4K Dual Format Deluxe Steelbook Edition Special Features:
- New 4K restorations of both the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut from the original camera negatives by Arrow Films
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) and High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of both cuts
- Limited Edition SteelBook housed in Deluxe rigid packaging, both with newly commissioned artwork by Sam Gilbey
- 60-page perfect-bound collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kim Morgan and Nicholas Clement, a 2008 Maxim oral history featuring interviews with cast and crew, and Edgar Wright’s 2012 eulogy for Tony Scott
- Double-sided poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Gilbey
- Six double-sided, postcard-sized lobby card reproductions
- Coming Home In A Body Bag poster newly illustrated by Matthew Griffin
- Hollywood postcard illustrated by Raffi Antounian, originally commissioned for True Romance Fest
- “Clarence/Alabama” tattoo design sticker
- Original uncompressed stereo audio and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Audio commentary by director Tony Scott
- Audio commentary by writer Quentin Tarantino
- Audio commentary by stars Christian Slater & Patricia Arquette
- Audio commentary by critic Tim Lucas
- Select scene commentaries by stars Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, and Michael Rapaport
- Brand new select scene commentary by stars Bronson Pinchot and Saul Rubinek
- New interview with costume designer Susan Becker
- New interview with co-editor Michael Tronick
- New interview with co-composers Mark Mancina and John Van Tongeren
- New interview with Larry Taylor, author of Tony Scott: A Filmmaker on Fire
- Deleted scenes with optional commentary by Tony Scott
- Alternate ending with optional commentaries by Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino
- Electronic press kit featurettes, behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with Tony Scott, Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, and Gary Oldman
- Trailers and TV spots
- Image galleries
Available on a 2-Disc Deluxe Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Steelbook June 28th
