Films To Watch Before You Die #39

D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die…

True Romance, 1993.

Directed by Tony Scott.
Starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Val Kilmer, Dennis Hopper, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson.

True Romance centres around the relationship between comic store worker and film buff Clarence (Slater), and the call girl hired for his birthday by a friend, Alabama (Arquette). After a chance meeting they head to the cinema together, then to a diner and back to Clarence’s where they make love. Waking in the morning and having fallen in love with Clarence, Alabama admits she is a call girl, but Clarence loves her anyway.

In order to break Alabama free of her volatile pimp Drexl (Oldman), Clarence insists he leave her alone, but Drexl beats him. Clarence draws a gun on Drexl and kills him before collecting what he thinks is Alabama’s bag. When the pair open the bag they find cocaine and decide to leave Detroit for California, where they plan to sell the drugs on. However, Detroit gangster Vincenzo (Walken) is looking for the pair and the drugs. He quickly works out the pairs whereabouts and heads for LA. As Clarence and Alabama plan to do their deal the hotel in which they are transacting is raided by Vincenzo’s gangsters and the police. After a Mexican stand off bullet’s fly and Clarence manages to escape with Alabama.

The film didn’t perform too well at the box office and didn’t manage to earn back it’s modest $13 million budget, but has gone on to become a cult classic in part due to it being a Tarantino script. The film has a host of top name supporting actors and therefore the film is packed with classy performances from start to finish.

True Romance is a film you must see before you die because it was the first feature film script written by Quentin Tarantino and he claims it is his most autobiographical script to date. Tarantino had hoped to direct the film himself, but once his later written script Reservoir Dogs was finished he decided not to go back to his earlier writing and to instead look at developing something entirely new.