The blood-soaked poetry of Quentin Tarantino and the stylish visuals of Tony Scott turned out to be a match made in heaven when the former’s first ever feature screenplay came across the latter’s desk. Taking a glossy, comic book-y approach to the familiar Bonnie and Clyde story, True Romance is a crime thriller that oozes style.
Although it was initially a box office disappointment, it wasn’t long before Tarantino’s rising star power venerated True Romance as a cult classic. The movie still holds up today, thanks to these timeless elements.
Clarence & Alabama’s Tangible Love Connection
In many ways, True Romance plays like an escapist fantasy, as a lonely, down-on-his-luck geek meets a beautiful escort who falls head over heels in love with him. That story wouldn’t work if Alabama’s love for Clarence (and vice versa) didn’t feel real.
Thankfully, the movie doesn’t have that issue. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette share incredible chemistry in the roles and the script includes plenty of tender moments between them.
Tarantino’s Razor-Sharp Dialogue
Tarantino may not have directed True Romance, but his voice can be seen all over the movie thanks to his unmistakable style of dialogue. Like in all of Tarantino’s best movies, the dialogue scenes in True Romance are just as compelling as the action scenes.
There are entire conversations worth memorizing in True Romance, but little turns of phrase like “from a diddle-eyed Joe to a damned-if-I-know” are the standouts.
Gary Oldman’s Hilarious Performance As Drexl Spivey
In the first half of True Romance, the main antagonist is Drexl Spivey, Alabama’s pimp, played by an unrecognizable Gary Oldman with dreadlocks and a scar across his face. Oldman has played such legendary roles as Dracula, Beethoven, George Smiley, and Winston Churchill, but his eccentric turn as Drexl remains one of his finest performances.
Drexl is a straight-up sadist, massacring drug dealers in a hotel room for fun in his introductory scene. But thanks to Oldman’s hilarious line deliveries (“I ain’t as pretty as a couple of t*****s”), Drexl is still oddly charming.
The Soundtrack
The soundtrack of True Romance isn’t quite as memorable as some of Tarantino’s other soundtracks, like Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but Tony Scott brought the same pop-infused energy to the movie that Tarantino brings to his own directorial efforts. Soundgarden, Shelby Lynne, and Robert Palmer all appear on the soundtrack alongside Hans Zimmer’s original score.
Zimmer based the movie’s unmistakable theme on “Gassenhauer” from Carl Orff’s Schulwerk, famous for its use in Terrence Malick’s similar lovers-on-the-run thriller Badlands.
The Pitch-Black Comedic Sensibility
Like the rest of Tarantino’s scripts, True Romance has a healthy dose of dark humor. A brutal mafia shakedown is played for laughs; Drexl is a one-liner machine; and a movie producer accidentally covers himself in cocaine as he tries to hide it from an approaching cop.
And just like Reservoir Dogs’ “Stuck in the Middle with You” torture scene and Pulp Fiction’s “Bring out the gimp” pawn shop basement scene, the dark humor of True Romance still holds up today.
The Elvis Fantasies
The opening scene of True Romance establishes that Clarence is an Elvis Presley superfan, and whenever he’s alone at a crucial juncture in the plot, a fantasy version of Elvis appears to him to impart some wisdom.
It’s a neat reference to Woody Allen’s Bogart fantasies in the 1972 romcom Play It Again, Sam, and Val Kilmer provides a near-flawless impersonation of The King.
Brad Pitt’s Turn As A Clueless Stoner
Brad Pitt gives a brief but unforgettable supporting performance in True Romance as Clarence’s friend’s roommate Floyd, a stoner who spends all his time on the couch. Pitt’s comedic abilities are massively underutilized, but Tarantino has given him plenty of hilarious material to work on in True Romance, Inglourious Basterds, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
According to Judd Apatow, the Floyd character was the inspiration for Pineapple Express: “I thought it would be funny to make a movie in which you follow that character out of his apartment and watch him get chased by bad guys.”
The Thrilling Climactic Shootout
The conflicts of True Romance culminate in an explosive shootout in a hotel room between a bunch of drug dealers and a bunch of cops, with Clarence and Alabama caught in the middle.
In addition to being a spectacular, action-packed sequence, it also has plenty of emotional resonance as Clarence takes a gunshot to the eye and it’s unclear if he’ll make it out alive.
The Happy Ending
Tony Scott changed two crucial things about Tarantino’s original True Romance script. Tarantino had given the story a nonlinear structure, which Scott put into chronological order, and he also killed off Clarence at the end. In Scott’s version, Clarence just loses an eye and escapes to Mexico to start a family with Alabama.
While the bleaker original ending would’ve been cool and cynical and French New Wave-y, the movie works a lot better with Clarence’s survival. True Romance might not have had the same staying power it did if a morbid finale awaited audiences at the end.
The Sicilian Scene
Easily the most iconic scene in True Romance is the interrogation scene, often dubbed “the Sicilian scene.” Clarence’s dad, played by Dennis Hopper, is brutally questioned by a Sicilian mob enforcer, played by Christopher Walken. Realizing he’ll be killed either way, Clarence’s dad avoids giving away his son’s location and instead gives the mobster a little history lesson.
Tarantino once said at a Comic-Con panel that the Sicilian scene was his favorite scene he’d ever written until he finally topped it with the tense opening sequence of Inglourious Basterds.