Newly restored to 4K by Arrow, Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance has been released as a limited-edition Arrow Video Blu Ray.
It’s a tale as old as time. Boy meets Girl. They hit it off. The girl reveals she’s a call girl hired for Boy’s birthday but has fallen in love with him for real. They get married… Then the ghost of Elvis Presley convinces Boy to kill Girl’s pimp, steal a suitcase full of cocaine, go on the run from both the police and the mob and try to con a Hollywood movie producer into buying the aforementioned suitcase full of cocaine. Like I said, a classic love story.
As you would expect from a Tarantino script, the film is absolutely chock full of violence, profanity and incredibly sharp dialogue. Every character gets their own little moments, whether it be a snappy comeback or an off-beat monologue. This is especially important given the ludicrous amount of talent in the cast from the likes of Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken and James Gandolfini, who all give unforgettable performances despite only being in a scene or two.
Of course, this isn’t just a Tarantino film. While Tony Scott lacks the distinctive stylishness that we would have gotten if Quentin had directed it himself, he does bring a level of brash on-the-nose earnestness that gives the movie a lot of its heart. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are very likeable as Clarence and Alabama and the film sells the romance between the two (good job too, what with it being right there in the title and everything).
This sense of unreality is again a product of the unexpectedly great pairing of Tarantino’s gritty and snappy script with Scott’s bold and glossy direction. The film looks absolutely stunning… the scenes set in Detroit look practically nightmarish with their neon-drenched murkiness and contrast nicely with how painfully bright everything in Los Angeles is
TRUE ROMANCE
It’s this central relationship that turns True Romance (see, told you) from a fairly conventional crime drama to a twisted fairytale, as we root for our heroes to overcome their obstacles… even if those obstacles are just all the crimes that they have done, and make it to the promised land of Cancun. It also helps avoid the obvious pitfall of the film, that Clarence may as well have been named Trenton Quarantino for how obvious an author stand-in he is.
This sense of unreality is again a product of the unexpectedly great pairing of Tarantino’s gritty and snappy script with Scott’s bold and glossy direction. And this has been turned up to 11 by the 4K restoration. The film looks absolutely stunning now, the scenes set in Detroit look practically nightmarish with their neon-drenched murkiness and contrast nicely with how almost painfully bright everything in Los Angeles is, with colours that, to shamelessly use a cliché, seem to pop right out of the screen.
It’s not all saccharine bursts of colour though and the film knows how to be intense when it needs to be. The hotel room fight between Alabama and James Gandolfini’s Virgil is brutal (even more so in 4K) and one of the great unsung fight scenes in film history.
The Blu-ray release also comes with a host of extra features, such as the usual interviews commentaries and deleted scenes, including an alternate ending based on the original from Tarantino’s script. It also has both the director’s cut of the film and the theatrical release if you want to watch the film again but without most of the fun parts. True Romance is like a roller coaster. It’s wild and fun, disorientingly full-on at times and you’ll probably end up sat next to a guy who will try to sell you drugs during the ride because Elvis told him to.
TRUE ROMANCE IS OUT NOW ON ARROW VIDEO BLU-RAY
CLICK THE IMAGE TO BUY TRUE ROMANCE FROM HMV
THANKS FOR READING ANDREW’S REVIEW OF TRUE ROMANCE
This month’s Pop Screen exclusive sees us (big) suit up for what many people consider the greatest concert movie of all time – Talking Heads’s wildly inventive, Jonathan Demme-directed masterpiece Stop Making Sense. Graham is joined once again by Talking Heads superfan Ewan Gleadow to discuss the band’s career, the wild visual concepts and their possible meanings, the band’s excursions into unexpected genres, Chris Frantz’s moany autobiography and so much more.
POP SCREEN PATREON
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