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True Romance - Unrated Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition) Customer Reviews (22 - 24 of 48 Reviews)

More 'True' than the Budweiser ads...
This is an amazing movie. But be patient, you may think people getting married after 3 days or so of knowing each other is stupid, but hang on. Then the action kicks in, the couple find $500,000 worth of coke belonging to the mob. Buth they want to sell it and start their lives again somewhere nice. Superb acting from not only the stars (Slater and Arquette) but the supports and extras (Pitt, Kilmer, Walken, Oldman, Sizemore) too. Great original story and very gripping, nice chunk of action and an ending that'll blow you away and leave you wanting more and more and more. One to buy for sure and to watch over and over. Enjoy!

Great! Shocking! Perfect!
Terrific movie! The perfect mix of action, romance, and thrills. Written by Tarantino, his style definitely comes through. Would suggest this movie to anyone over the age of 18. Buy it. Enjoy it. Love it. Watch it. Watch it again. Again. Again. etc...

Love, Tarantino style
Say what you will about Quentin Tarantino, he deserves credit for one thing: his work has consistently managed to illuminate a side of American life that most of us can scarcely imagine. For those us living in the world of sensible import cars, white-collar jobs, and quiet suburban dwellings, Tarantino gives us a glimpse of another, darker world, one populated by drug dealers, gangsters, cops on the edge, and assorted other colorful characters. Watching Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, or Kill Bill for some is sort of like entering a parallel universe, and while I can't be sure how true-to-life Tarantino's depiction of life on the other side of the law is, it always makes for some thrilling viewing.

Which brings us to the less-ironically-titled-than-you-might-think True Romance, written by Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, a romantic movie for guys who don't like romantic movies. Sure, it's based on a premise you won't find in any Jennifer Lopez movie--poor comic-store clerk falls for and marries the call girl hired by his boss to show him a good time on his birthday--and it takes place against the backdrop of Detroit's post-industrial decay before moving on to the morally decayed world of Hollywood. That said, at bottom True Romance is about love, and the wild-eyed idealism, Devil-may-care recklessness, and irrational devotion that go with it.
Sure, this is a bizarre, unconventional, and subversive love story, but it's a love story just the same, which is a large part of the movie's enduring appeal.

Of course, this is also a love story written by Quentin Tarantino, so you can expect to see plenty of wacky characters and twisted happenings, and True Romance doesn't disappoint in this regard. While it was written before the release of Pulp Fiction made him American cinema's unofficial arbiter of cool, this movie showcases his signature style in all its fast-paced, hyper-violent, pop culture-referencing glory. Fittingly, Scott directs with a manic intensity and efficiency that keeps things moving along briskly, and with this unrated director's cut (perhaps the best three words in the English language), you get to see the film's ample bloodshed in even more unflinching brutality.

It all starts with the meeting of the aforementioned comic-store clerk and call girl, Clarence (Christian Slater, actually showing a modicum of acting ability) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette, who's never looked better), in a run-down movie theater during a Sonny Chiba triple-header. From there, things progress quickly: the pair get married; Clarence decides to dispatch Alabama's ex-pimp (played in hilariously over-the-top fashion by a dreadlocked, ebonics-spouting Gary Oldman) and accidentally gets away with a suitcase full of cocaine; he and Alabama flee to L.A. with mobsters in pursuit and decide to sell the coke to an imperious movie producer. Of course, things go wrong somewhere along the line, leading to one of history's great climatic shootouts, rivalling even the mother of them all, the concluding church standoff from John Woo's The Killer. Througout the movie, blood flows liberally, the best and worst elements of human nature are put on sharp display, and tons of whip-smart dialogue is exchanged. Even Elvis himself, looking and sounding a lot like Val Kilmer, makes a couple of appearances.

Hmmmm, what else is there? Well, there's Dennis Hopper as Clarence's doomed ex-cop of a father, delivering one of movie history's greatest monologues to a group of assembled mobsters as he reveals his extensive knowledge of Sicilian history and genealogy. There's Christopher Walken, playing Christopher Walken in a the role of an intense, steely-eyed mob counsel, and James Gandolfini as--what else?--a vicious gangster who likes his job a bit too much. There's also Brad Pitt as Clarence's friend's roommate Floyd, an unmotivated stoner who provides a measure of comic relief amid the often-dour proceedings. But through it all, the love between Clarence and Alabama is at the film's center, giving heart to what would otherwise be an exciting but fairly conventional cops-and-robbers story. And that, more than anything, is what elevates this movie above the plain: its creators' willingness to combine disparate elements and genres and come out with something legitimately unique in the process. Even now, more than a decade after its release, True Romance can easily be proclaimed one of the finest entries in the action-romance-gangster subgenre.

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