Remembering Tony Scott: True Romance Review

Last week, blockbuster film director Tony Scott (Top Gun, Enemy of the State) committed suicide. Early rumors indicate that his decision to end his life was fueled by inoperable brain cancer. Suddenly, every news site and gossip blog in the world wants to speculate about the life and death of one of the action genre's greatest filmmakers. Here at Action A Go Go, we don't need to speculate or spread unfounded rumors to understand the director of such macho masterpieces like Crimson Tide, Last Boy Scout, and Man on Fire...everything we need to know is all on screen.

True Romance

Stunts and Effects: 75% 
Logic: 70% 
Soundtrack: 100% 
TnA: 70% 
Cognitive Decline of Audience: 30% 
Overall Inches on the Action Erection Scale: 12 out of 12

Lovingly pulling from Terrence Malik's Badlands, True Romance is about comic book nerd Christian Slater rescuing a hooker with a heart of gold (Patricia Arquette) from the clutches of her pimp. During the gruesome struggle to free her from prostitution, the two mistakenly end up stealing a suitcase full of coke. With a case that is worth more than either of them, the oblivious lovers attempt to sell the coke to a sleazy film producer, putting them on a collision course with the mob, the feds, and a dizzying number of fantastic cameos.

For me, the most compelling thing about True Romance is how Quentin Tarantino's script (his first) meshes with director Tony Scott's vision. As far as methods go, the two are on different ends of the filmmaking spectrum: Scott is a technical director known for hyper-kinetic blockbusters while Tarantino is known primarily for dialogue-driven crime dramas. At the time, while Scott had already helmed monster successes like Days of Thunder and Top Gun, Tarantino was still a few years off from being indie film's biggest success story. Despite it all, what the two filmmakers do have in common is how adept they are at creating on-screen intensity --- putting the audience right in the moment.

And that is exactly why True Romance is such an exceptional film. At its core, its about the love shared between the two passion-crazed protagonists, Clarence and Alabama. The certainty of their relationship becomes more intense as the film's violence grows. In the world of Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino, intense violence is a tool that is used to cultivate Clarence and Alabama's unflinching love for each other. Their lust can only be quantified by the amount of people that die so that they can live. For the filmmakers, there is no question of whether or not love is grand --- for them it's perverse, dangerous, unflinching, and totally surreal. Sounds about right.