Mantis Fists

Quentin Tarantino’s macho coke movie is timeless; an unbelievably talented ensemble cast perform with bravado, shot mostly with close-ups by Jeffrey Kimball. Blood, drugs, guns, money, and women: that’s the “True Romance” in Tarantino’s world.

Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) is an emotionally stunted comic book store clerk who goes to see a Sonny Chiba triple-feature on his birthday. A chance encounter with Alabama (Patricia Arquette) in the theater leads to post-film pie and subsequently, lovemaking. However, Alabama reveals that she is both a call girl and in love with Clarence. The two outcasts get hitched, and Clarence vows to kill Drexl (Gary Oldman), Alabama’s vicious Mad Hatter rastafarian pimp- setting in to motion a chase involving both Detroit’s Sicilian mafia and the Los Angeles Police Department- over a big suitcase full of uncut cocaine, carried by Clarence and Alabama.

The film seems aware of its own cult potential; the famous “Sicilian scene” is ingeniously lit, and tensely acted by Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper. The final shootout in Los Angeles, which includes a room full of immensely talented actors brandishing weapons at each other, is both sensationalist and iconic. Slater is phenomenal as Clarence, and totally “cool” in his gold-plated aviators. And while decidedly adolescent, Clarence’s sense of masculinity, as drawn from Elvis and kung fu movies, is a telling ingredient to Tarantino’s own absurdly skewed sense of reality, one built around his film collection and pop culture knowledge. But in this idealist fantasy, what’s wrong with that? It’s not inherently wrong to draw strength from an icon like Elvis, or Sonny Chiba.

Tony Scott and Tarantino’s pop culture shootout is now considered a “cult favorite”; understandable, but “True Romance” is by no means perfect. It loses steam around Act III. Nonetheless, glossy and dream-like, the story of Clarence and Alabama ends with a Tarantino quote for the ages: “You’re so cool.” Dualism cynically divides Tarantino’s work, but Scott lends a more innocent hand to the film, reducing the moral perplexities into simple cinematic flourish, a romantic “Bonnie & Clyde” fueled by cocaine and Elvis Presley.