TRUE ROMANCE

TRUE ROMANCE (Directed by Tony Scott. Starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken)

It starts with an off-the-wall, expletive-filled conversation about a pop icon. It develops into a heist gone wrong, complete with not one but two vicious torture scenes and climaxing in the ultimate Mexican stand off (everybody pointing guns at everybody else), all fuelled with long, sexist, racist, in-your-face monologues and cut to a classic rock soundtrack. Sound familiar?

If True Romance weren't from the same pen as Reservoir Dogs it might be in danger of being dismissed as a rip off. The fact that it was written (and sold) by Quentin Tarantino several years before his sensational directorial debut makes a slight case for mitigation. This is the wunderkind's apprenticeship, an adrenalin rush of pulp fandom, filled with bizarre riffs and diversions, shot through with violent energy and comic excitement but entirely lacking the intense moral centre that gave Reservoir Dogs its emotional furnace.

The script was considered brilliant but unfilmable before Dogs appeared, presaging a wave of movies intent on overturning the unwritten cinematic code of violent behaviour. True Romance is slight, mainstream stuff by comparison, but is way over the top by comparison to most of the mainstream.

Director Tony Scott, Ridley's less-talented (but more successful) brother, is responsible for such MTV cinema as Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II and The Last Boy Scout. His film-making has always been a triumph of style over content and he certainly gives Tarantino's warped vision the full colour, wide-screen treatment. Compared to Dogs it looks like many millions of dollars, although the restless cameras and incessant cutting can become a visual irritant.

When there is so much violence onscreen, Scott's over-energetic film-making tends to obscure rather than enlighten. Perhaps this helps him get scenes of physical mutilation past the censor: during several vicious fights his camera bobs and weaves so much it becomes extremely hard to tell who is doing what unspeakable act to whom.

But if Scott is an industry hack who makes a living dressing up turkeys and stuffing them down the box office, then perhaps he was the ideal choice for a film that is the epitomy of modern pulp. True Romance is like a pop culture thesis, never mind the content, feel the references. Elvis. Guns. Cars. Drugs. Sex. Superheroes. Gangsters. Kung Fu. Porn. It's all here, in what is basically an overheated updating of every couple on the run movie ever made, Breathless by way of Badlands with a synringe full of Gun Crazy shot into its veins.

Clarence Worley (Christian Slater), a nerdy comics and film freak falls for inept hooker Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette). Goaded on by the ghost of Elvis Presley, he confronts her white, dread-locked pimp (Gary Oldman) and when things don't go quite according to plan the star-crossed lovers hit the road to L.A. in a purple cadillac with a trunkful of cocaine, mafia and cops hot on their trail.

If the road movie plot is basically by the map, it is the diversions that add scenic pleasure. Tarantino has sketched in an inspired collection of rogues, villains, hustlers and cops, each with their own stand-out scene, and a supporting cast that reads like a who's who of Hollywood bad-boys make the most of his juicy dialogue.

Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken and Chris Penn each get a chance to briefly throw their thespian weight around and make a big impression. There is an electric confrontation between Hopper and Walken, where a combination of sadistic violence and elaborate racist taunting are carefully employed to construct a scene of subtle heroism.

Mind you, racist taunting and sadistic violence are not to everyone's taste. Which is just fine by me. If you try to make entertainment to everyone's tastes you're gonna wind up at Disneyland. Sure, True Romance takes a rollercoaster ride at an East Coast amusement park but ends the scene in a pool of vomit.

Tarantino's script is not only politically incorrect, it blatantly breaks Hollywood's own rules of fair play. Dennis Hopper talks blithely about niggers, but there is no positive racial portrayal to offset this. Innocent people are maimed, hurt and killed. Guilty people get away. Crime pays. Cocaine pays more. At the centre of the film are a pair of self-centred, immature, careless, drug-dealing killers . . . and we're rooting for them all the way.

Quentin Tarantino may yet turn out to be nothing but a gifted connoisseur of trash but True Romance's clever twists and verbal pyrotechnics earn him the benefit of the doubt. It is not exactly romantic and it sure as hell don't ring true but it's close enough tor rock and roll.