True Romance

It's easy to wonder what this film would be without Quentin Tarantino. Surely it would still have one of the most stellar casts ever, plus the skilled hand of Tony Scott, and an absolutely superb soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. But it would have lacked the soul that Tarantino's wonderfully relaxed screenplay gave it, and the story would have been completely lost. With all that, True Romance is one of the most charming and compelling crime stories I've ever seen, and Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette may be the best couple since Bonnie and Clyde. (10/07/2012)

This is Tony Scott’s best film, hands down. A big share of that goes to Quentin Tarantino’s playful script that sets True Romance apart from Scott’s newer good films, like Enemy of the State. This film is not only nice to watch, but it’s at least equally nice to listen to the dialogues. (02/11/2012)

The most movie-like movie. Optimistic, light-hearted, except for the scenes with total massacres and the main thing is love beyond the grave. I can’t help myself thinking that this is the sort of movie that says that the world is sometimes a pile of shit, but sometimes it’s very fine. Sometimes. When you have somebody to wander the world with. This is perhaps one of Tarantino’s most restrained screenplays, but this gives his fans a good chance to sit back and enjoy his work. And Elvis! (10/20/2011)

Elvis, comics, romance, chatty gangsters. And above all, a couple in love who just wants to improve their lives. So be careful, world, because murder in Alabama seems romantic, and Clarence will do anything for it. Now it's just a matter of having a little luck when several killers are after you, who will stop at nothing, let alone the sight of a gun. And in the end, I couldn't stop myself either. I could have had a thousand complaints that Tarantino is actually the same since his beginnings, the screenplay rushes too quickly from one place to another, and the dialogues are too absorbed in their perfectly nonsensical themes and over-the-top absurdity. But Slater, in his naivety and innocence, is truly a lovable hero, Scott's directing hand is perfectly steady, and the last twenty minutes have tension, surprises, fresh action, emotion – and actually everything. In addition, Zimmer's soundtrack is amazing in that it occasionally lifts the mood, sometimes squeezes the emotions, and even occasionally slides into irony. A genre mishmash and at the same time sharply defined darkly humorous bite-size piece. (10/12/2007)

A brilliant, almost Tarantino-esque film that fills out beautifully and accurately the ninety-third year, hence the year-long directorial hiatus in Q.T.'s output – a break in the very fruitful period between Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction). I think it's time to look back a bit at the nineties work of perhaps my all-time favorite, Quentin. I've seen Reservoir Dogs, I've seen Pulp Fiction, I've seen Jackie Brown, I've seen Natural Born Killers (which, despite being "just" a Tarantino screenplay, I consider a Tarantino movie in a way). The only thing I missed was True Romance, and I put it off for so long really only because Q.T. didn't end up directing it. However, Tony Scott has some balls too, and once again he took on a superbly layered, thoughtful, and funny script with all the panache he could muster and really managed to wring the most out of the action scenes. The early work of Q.T. was already clearly proving that both in terms of screenwriting (just in the actual construction of the plot) and in terms of being able to get a bunch of interesting characters on screen and create atmosphere through their "mere" actions and behavior, Tarantino was just going to be a whiz. And that Zimmer soft soundtrack in the "romantic" passages was not to be missed! (07/26/2011)