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True Romance

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
True Romance
True romance.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTony Scott
Written by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJeffrey L. Kimball
Edited by
Music byHans Zimmer
Production
companies
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • September 10, 1993 (1993-09-10)
Running time
118 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States[2][3]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$12.5 million[4]
Box office$12.6 million[4]
For other uses, see True Romance (disambiguation).

True Romance is a 1993 American romantic crime film directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino. It features an ensemble cast led by Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, with Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Walken in supporting roles. Slater and Arquette portray newlyweds on the run from the Mafia after stealing a shipment of drugs.

True Romance began life as an early script by Tarantino; he sold the screenplay in order to finance his debut feature film, Reservoir Dogs (1992). It is regarded by proponents as a cross-section of writer Tarantino and director Scott's respective trademarks, including a Southern California setting, pop cultural references, and stylized violence punctuated by slow motion.[5][6]

Though initially a box-office failure, the film's positive reviews, with critics praising the dialogue, characters, and off-beat style,[7] earned it a cult following. It has come to be considered one of Scott's best films and one of the best American films of the 1990s.[8][9][10]

Discover more about True Romance related topics

Romance film

Romance film

Romance films, romance movies, or ship films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey through dating, courtship or marriage is featured. These films make the search for romantic love the main plot focus. Occasionally, romance lovers face obstacles such as finances, physical illness, various forms of discrimination, psychological restraints or family resistance. As in all quite strong, deep and close romantic relationships, the tensions of day-to-day life, temptations, and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.

Crime film

Crime film

Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film, but also include comedy, and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such as mystery, suspense or noir.

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue including the pervasive use of profanity and references to popular culture.

Ensemble cast

Ensemble cast

In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.

Christian Slater

Christian Slater

Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut with a leading role in The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) and gained wider recognition for his breakthrough role as Jason "J.D." Dean, a sociopathic high school student, in the satire Heathers (1988). He has received critical acclaim for his title role in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019), for which he earned the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 2016, with additional nominations in 2017 and 2018.

Patricia Arquette

Patricia Arquette

Patricia Tiffany Arquette is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). Her other notable films include True Romance (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Lost Highway (1997), The Hi-Lo Country (1998), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Stigmata (1999), Holes (2003), Fast Food Nation (2006), The Wannabe (2015), and Toy Story 4 (2019). For playing a single mother in the coming-of-age film Boyhood (2014), which was filmed from 2002 until 2014, Arquette won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in two of the films that made James Dean famous, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Giant (1956) as well as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). In the next ten years he made a name for himself in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films, notably The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Hang 'Em High (1968) and True Grit (1969). Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s.

Gary Oldman

Gary Oldman

Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor and filmmaker. Known for his versatility and intense acting style, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three British Academy Film Awards. His films have grossed over $11 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time.

Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt

William Bradley Pitt is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. As a public figure, Pitt has been cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in the American entertainment industry.

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is an American actor. Prolific in film, television, and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades. He has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. His films have grossed more than $1.6 billion in the United States alone.

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 American neo-noir crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunker as diamond thieves whose heist of a jewelry store goes terribly wrong. Kirk Baltz, Randy Brooks, and Steven Wright also play supporting roles. It incorporates many motifs that have become Tarantino's hallmarks: violent crime, pop culture references, profanity, and nonlinear storytelling.

Cult following

Cult following

A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. A film, book, musical artist, television series, or video game, among other things, is said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fanbase.

Plot

At a Detroit theater showing kung fu films, Alabama Whitman strikes up a conversation with Elvis Presley fanatic Clarence Worley. They later have sex at his downtown apartment. Alabama tearfully confesses that she is a call girl hired by his boss as a birthday present but has fallen in love with him. The two get married the next day at City Hall. An apparition of Elvis visits Clarence and convinces him to kill Alabama's abusive pimp, Drexl Spivey. Going to the brothel where Alabama worked, he shoots and kills Drexl, and takes a bag he assumes contains Alabama's belongings. Back at the apartment, he and Alabama discover it contains a large amount of cocaine that Drexl had stolen from two drug pushers.

The couple visits Clarence's estranged father Clifford, a retired cop, for help. He tells Clarence the police assume Drexl's murder is a gang killing committed in revenge for the murdered dealers. After the couple leave for Los Angeles, Clifford is interrogated by Vincenzo Coccotti, consigliere to mobster "Blue Lou Boyle", who had hired Drexl to steal and distribute the cocaine on his behalf. He reveals that the mob knows about Clarence's theft since they found his driver's license near Drexl's body. Clifford, realizing he will die anyway, mockingly defies Coccotti, who shoots him dead. One of his men then finds an LA address taped to Clifford's refrigerator.

In LA, Clarence and Alabama meet Clarence's aspiring actor friend Dick Ritchie, who introduces him to actor and production assistant Elliot Blitzer. He reluctantly agrees to broker the sale of the drugs to his boss, legendary film producer Lee Donowitz. While Clarence is out buying lunch, Coccotti's enforcer Virgil finds Alabama in her motel room and beats her for information. Alabama fights back, using hairspray to set fire to Virgil's clothes and putting nail polish in his eyes, before grabbing his sawn-off shotgun, stabbing him with a corkscrew, and shooting him to death in a maniacal rage. Clarence tends to her wounds, and they discuss their future together.

Elliot is pulled over for speeding and gets charged when his mistress spills a bag of cocaine after he tries to hide it in her dress. To stay out of jail, he agrees to wear a wire and record the drug deal between Clarence and Donowitz for police detectives Dimes and Nicholson. Coccotti's men also learn about where the deal will take place from Dick's stoner roommate Floyd. Clarence, Alabama, Dick, and Elliot go to Donowitz's suite at the Ambassador Hotel with the drugs. In the elevator, a suspicious Clarence threatens Elliot at gunpoint, but is persuaded by Elliot's pleading for mercy.

Clarence fabricates a story for Donowitz that the drugs were given to him by a corrupt cop, and he agrees to the sale. Excusing himself to the bathroom, the vision of Elvis reassures him that things are going well. Donowitz and his bodyguards are ambushed by the cops and the mobsters. Elliot reveals himself to be an informant by asking the cops if he could leave, whereupon a shootout erupts. Dick throws the suitcase of the drugs in the air, where it gets shredded by gunfire, and flees. Donowitz, his bodyguards, Elliot, the cops, and the mobsters are all killed, and Clarence is wounded as he exits the bathroom. He and Alabama escape with Donowitz's money as more police arrive. They flee to Mexico where Alabama gives birth to a son, whom they name Elvis.

Discover more about Plot related topics

Detroit

Detroit

Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 census, making it the 27th-most populous city in the United States. The metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area, and the 14th-largest in the United States. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music, art, architecture and design, in addition to its historical automotive background. Time named Detroit as one of the fifty World's Greatest Places of 2022 to explore.

Kung fu film

Kung fu film

Kung fu film is a subgenre of martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema set in the contemporary period and featuring realistic martial arts. It lacks the fantasy elements seen in wuxia, a related martial arts genre that uses historical settings based on ancient China. Swordplay is also less common in kung-fu films than in wuxia and fighting is done through unarmed combat.

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley, often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer, actor and sergeant in the United States Army. Dubbed the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and initial controversy.

Downtown Detroit

Downtown Detroit

Downtown Detroit is the central business district and a residential area of the city of Detroit, Michigan, United States. Locally, downtown tends to refer to the 1.4 square mile region bordered by M-10 to the west, Interstate 75 to the north, I-375 to the east, and the Detroit River to the south. Although, it may also refer to the Greater Downtown area, a 7.2 square mile region that includes surrounding neighborhoods such as Midtown, Corktown, Rivertown, and Woodbridge.

Call girl

Call girl

A call girl or female escort is a prostitute who does not display her profession to the general public, nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency. The client must make an appointment, usually by calling a telephone number. Call girls often advertise their services in small ads in magazines and via the Internet, although an intermediary advertiser, such as an escort agency, may be involved in promoting escorts, while, less often, some may be handled by a pimp. Call girls may work either incall, where the client comes to them, or outcall, where they go to the client. Some porn stars are known to escort as well.

Procuring (prostitution)

Procuring (prostitution)

Procuring or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp or a madam or a brothel keeper, is an agent for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. The procurer may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing and possibly monopolizing a location where the prostitute may solicit clients. Like prostitution, the legality of certain actions of a madam or a pimp vary from one region to the next.

Cocaine

Cocaine

Cocaine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant. As an extract it is mainly used recreationally and often illegally for its euphoric effects. It is also used in medicine by Indigenous South Americans for various purposes and rarely as a local anaesthetic elsewhere. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South America: Erythroxylum coca and E. novogranatense. After extraction from the plant, and further processing into cocaine hydrochloride, the drug is administered by being either snorted, applied topically to the mouth, or dissolved and injected into a vein. It can also then be turned into free base form, in which it can be heated until sublimated and then the vapours can be inhaled.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California, the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, and one of the world's most populous megacities. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.

Consigliere

Consigliere

Consigliere is a position within the leadership structure of the Sicilian, Calabrian, and Italian-American Mafia. The word was popularized in English by the novel The Godfather (1969) and its film adaptation. In the novel, a consigliere is an advisor or counselor to the boss, with the additional responsibility of representing the boss in important meetings both within the boss's crime family and with other crime families.

Film producer

Film producer

A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, directing, editing, and arranging financing.

Ambassador Hotel (Los Angeles)

Ambassador Hotel (Los Angeles)

The Ambassador Hotel was a hotel in Los Angeles, California. Designed by architect Myron Hunt, the Ambassador Hotel formally opened to the public on January 1, 1921. Later renovations by architect Paul Williams were made to the hotel in the late 1940s. It was also home to the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Los Angeles’ premier night spot for decades; host to six Oscar ceremonies and to every United States President from Herbert Hoover to Richard Nixon.

Cast

Discover more about Cast related topics

Christian Slater

Christian Slater

Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut with a leading role in The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) and gained wider recognition for his breakthrough role as Jason "J.D." Dean, a sociopathic high school student, in the satire Heathers (1988). He has received critical acclaim for his title role in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019), for which he earned the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 2016, with additional nominations in 2017 and 2018.

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in two of the films that made James Dean famous, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Giant (1956) as well as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). In the next ten years he made a name for himself in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films, notably The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Hang 'Em High (1968) and True Grit (1969). Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s.

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley, often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer, actor and sergeant in the United States Army. Dubbed the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and initial controversy.

Gary Oldman

Gary Oldman

Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor and filmmaker. Known for his versatility and intense acting style, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three British Academy Film Awards. His films have grossed over $11 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time.

Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt

William Bradley Pitt is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. As a public figure, Pitt has been cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in the American entertainment industry.

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is an American actor. Prolific in film, television, and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades. He has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. His films have grossed more than $1.6 billion in the United States alone.

Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Alcott Pinchot is an American actor. He is best known for playing Balki Bartokomous on the ABC sitcom Perfect Strangers (1986–93). He also performed in films, such as Risky Business (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), After Hours (1985), True Romance (1993), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Stephen King's The Langoliers (1995), It's My Party (1996), Courage Under Fire (1996) and The First Wives Club (1996), and in television series, such as Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Meego and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. In 2012, he starred in his own reality series, The Bronson Pinchot Project on the DIY Network.

Conchata Ferrell

Conchata Ferrell

Conchata Galen Ferrell was an American actress. Although she was a regular cast member of five sitcoms, she was best known for playing Berta the housekeeper for all 12 seasons of Two and a Half Men. For her performance as Berta, she received two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She had previously been nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her performance in L.A. Law.

James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini

James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Tony Soprano, the Italian-American Mafia crime boss in HBO's television series The Sopranos. For this role, he won three Emmy Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and one Golden Globe Award. His role as Tony Soprano has been described as one of the greatest and most influential performances in television history.

Anna Thomson

Anna Thomson

Anna Thomson is an American actress known professionally as Anna Levine. She was also credited as Anna Levine Thompson and Anna Thomson.

Chris Penn

Chris Penn

Christopher Shannon Penn was an American actor. He was the brother of actor Sean Penn and musician Michael Penn. Noted as a skilled character actor from a prominent acting dynasty, he was typically cast as a tough character, featured as a villain or a working-class thug, or in a comic role and was known for his roles in such films as The Wild Life, Reservoir Dogs, The Funeral, Footloose, Rush Hour, Corky Romano, True Romance, Beethoven's 2nd, Short Cuts, The Boys Club, All the Right Moves, At Close Range, Pale Rider, and Starsky & Hutch. During his career Penn had won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in The Funeral. He also provided the voice of the corrupt, ruthless cop Edward "Eddie" Pulaski in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Gregory Sporleder

Gregory Sporleder

Gregory Sporleder is an American actor and filmmaker, notable for playing military men in films such as The Rock, Black Hawk Down and Renaissance Man, as well as Calvin Norris in the HBO series True Blood.

Production

The title and plot are a play on the titles of romance comic books such as True Life Secrets, True Stories of Romance, Romance Tales, Untamed Love and Strange Love.

The film was a breakthrough for Tarantino. Released after Reservoir Dogs, it was his first screenplay for a major motion picture, and Tarantino contends that it is his most autobiographical film to date. He had hoped to direct the film, but lost interest in directing and sold the script. According to Tarantino's audio commentary on the DVD release, he was happy with the way it turned out. Apart from changing the nonlinear narrative he wrote to a more conventional linear structure, it was largely faithful to his original screenplay. He initially opposed director Tony Scott's decision to change the ending (which Scott maintained was of his own volition, not the studio's, saying "I just fell in love with these two characters and didn’t want to see them die"). When seeing the completed film, he realized Scott's happy ending was more appropriate to the film as Scott directed it.[11] The film's first act, as well as some fragments of dialogue, were repurposed from Tarantino's 1987 amateur film My Best Friend's Birthday.

The film's score by Hans Zimmer is a theme based on Gassenhauer from Carl Orff's Schulwerk. This theme, combined with a voiceover spoken by Arquette, is an homage to Terrence Malick's 1973 crime film Badlands, in which Sissy Spacek speaks the voiceover, and that also shares similar dramatic motifs.

The movie was heavily censored by the UK BBFC. The majority of the confrontation between Alabama and Virgil was cut as well as much of Floyd's drug use. There was also an alternative ending where Detective Nicky Dimes was not shot by Alabama but by Toothpick Vic, one of the mafia hitmen, instead. This edit was the official 1993 VHS release but subsequently all DVD and Blu-ray releases are of the original uncensored American version.

Discover more about Production related topics

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 American neo-noir crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunker as diamond thieves whose heist of a jewelry store goes terribly wrong. Kirk Baltz, Randy Brooks, and Steven Wright also play supporting roles. It incorporates many motifs that have become Tarantino's hallmarks: violent crime, pop culture references, profanity, and nonlinear storytelling.

My Best Friend's Birthday

My Best Friend's Birthday

My Best Friend's Birthday is a 1987 amateur comedy film directed, edited, co-written, co-produced and starring Quentin Tarantino. The film was shot in black-and-white and was originally meant to have a runtime of seventy minutes, but only 36 minutes of the film are edited altogether, leaving the project unfinished.

Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer

Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph.

Gassenhauer

Gassenhauer

Gassenhauer nach Hans Neusiedler (1536), commonly known as Gassenhauer, is a short piece from Orff Schulwerk, developed during the 1920's by Carl Orff with long-time collaborator Gunild Keetman. As the full title indicates, it is an arrangement of a much older work by the lutenist Hans Neusidler from 1536. It is credited to Keetman on a 1995 release of the Schulwerk. As with many other pieces from the Schulwerk, it has been used multiple times on television, radio, music and in films, including the films Badlands (1973), True Romance (1993), Ratcatcher (1999), Finding Forrester (2000), Monster (2003), Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), The Simpsons' 22nd-season episode "The Scorpion's Tale" (2011), Friend of the World (2020), The Simpsons' 33rd-season episode "Mothers and Other Strangers" (2021) and Mad God (2021). The piece was used as the theme music for an afternoon radio program also titled Gassenhauer on the classical music station WCLV in Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1970s.

Carl Orff

Carl Orff

Carl Heinrich Maria Orff was a German composer and music educator, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana (1937). The concepts of his Schulwerk were influential for children's music education.

Terrence Malick

Terrence Malick

Terrence Frederick Malick is an American filmmaker. His films include Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, The New World (2005) and The Tree of Life (2011), the latter of which garnered him another Best Director Oscar nomination and the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.

Badlands (film)

Badlands (film)

Badlands is a 1973 American neo-noir period crime drama film written, produced and directed by Terrence Malick, in his directorial debut. The film stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and follows Holly Sargis (Spacek), a 15-year old who goes on a killing spree with her partner, Kit Carruthers (Sheen); the film also stars Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri. While the story is fictional, it is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.

Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek

Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek is an American actress and singer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for four British Academy Film Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. Spacek was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.

Reception

Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 93% with an average rating of 7.60/10, based on 55 reviews. The site's critics consensus states: "Fueled by Quentin Tarantino's savvy screenplay and a gallery of oddball performances, Tony Scott's True Romance is a funny and violent action jaunt in the best sense."[12] On Metacritic the film received a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[14]

Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star called it "one of the most dynamic action films of the 1990s".[15] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it three stars, saying "it's Tarantino's gutter poetry that detonates True Romance. This movie is dynamite."[16]

Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review remarking that "the energy and style of the movie are exhilarating", and that "the supporting cast is superb, a roll call of actors at home in these violent waters: Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, and Brad Pitt, for example".[17] A negative review by The Washington Post's Richard Harrington claimed the film was "stylistically visceral" yet "aesthetically corrupt".[18]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "True Romance, a vibrant, grisly, gleefully amoral road movie directed by Tony Scott and dominated by the machismo of Quentin Tarantino (who wrote this screenplay before he directed Reservoir Dogs), is sure to offend a good-sized segment of the moviegoing population".[19]

Box office performance

Although a critical success, True Romance was a box office failure. It was given a domestic release and earned $12.3 million[4] on a $12.5 million budget. Despite this, the film developed a cult following over the years.[20][21]

Legacy

Empire ranked True Romance the 83rd greatest film of all time in 2017, writing: "Tony Scott's handling of Quentin Tarantino's script came off like the cinematic equivalent of cocaine-flavoured bubble-gum: a bright, flavoursome confection that had an intoxicatingly violent kick. It also drew some tremendous big names to its supporting cast."[8]

The Hopper/Walken scene, colloquially named "The Sicilian scene", was praised by Oliver Lyttelton of IndieWire, who called it "one of the most beautiful tête-à-têtes in contemporary cinema, wonderfully written and made utterly iconic by the two virtuoso actors".[22] Tarantino himself has named it as one of his proudest moments. "I had heard that whole speech about the Sicilians a long time ago, from a black guy living in my house. One day I was talking with a friend who was Sicilian and I just started telling that speech. And I thought: 'Wow, that is a great scene, I gotta remember that'."[23]

Oldman's villain also garnered acclaim. MSN Movies wrote: "With just a few minutes of screen time, Gary Oldman crafts one of cinema's most memorable villains: the brutal, dreadlocked pimp Drexl Spivey. Even in a movie jammed with memorable cameos from screen luminaries [...] Oldman's scar-faced, dead-eyed, lethal gangster stood out."[24] Jason Serafino of Complex named Spivey as one of the top five coolest drug dealers in movie history, writing: "He's not in the film for a long time, but the few scant moments that Gary Oldman plays the psychotic dealer Drexl Spivey make True Romance a classic ... Oldman gave us a glimpse at one of cinema's most unfiltered sociopaths."[25] Maxim journalist Thomas Freeman ranked Spivey as the greatest performance of Oldman's career.[26]

"Robbers", a song by the English indie rock band The 1975 from their 2013 debut album, was inspired by the film. Vocalist Matthew Healy explained: "I got really obsessed with the idea behind Patricia Arquette's character in True Romance when I was about eighteen. That craving for the bad boy in that film [is] so sexualized."[27]

True Romance, the 2013 debut album from English pop star Charli XCX, was named after the film.[28]

Brad Pitt's stoner character in True Romance, Floyd, was the inspiration for making the film Pineapple Express, according to producer Judd Apatow, who "thought it would be funny to make a movie in which you follow that character out of his apartment and watch him get chased by bad guys".[29]

James Gandolfini landed his iconic role of Tony Soprano on The Sopranos when he was invited to audition for the role after casting director Susan Fitzgerald saw a short clip of his performance in True Romance. Gandolfini ultimately received the role ahead of several other actors including Steven Van Zandt and Michael Rispoli.[30]

Discover more about Reception related topics

Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged. Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999, and is owned by Fandom, Inc. as of 2023.

CinemaScore

CinemaScore

CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.

Arizona Daily Star

Arizona Daily Star

The Arizona Daily Star is the major morning daily newspaper that serves Tucson and surrounding districts of southern Arizona in the United States.

Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Peter Joseph Travers is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts the film interview program Popcorn with Peter Travers for ABC News.

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is an American actor. Prolific in film, television, and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades. He has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. His films have grossed more than $1.6 billion in the United States alone.

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in two of the films that made James Dean famous, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Giant (1956) as well as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). In the next ten years he made a name for himself in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films, notably The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Hang 'Em High (1968) and True Grit (1969). Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s.

Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt

William Bradley Pitt is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. As a public figure, Pitt has been cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in the American entertainment industry.

Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin

Janet R. Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as a Times film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, Maslin helped found the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. She is president of its board of directors.

Cult following

Cult following

A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. A film, book, musical artist, television series, or video game, among other things, is said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fanbase.

Empire (magazine)

Empire (magazine)

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. The first issue was published in May 1989.

IndieWire

IndieWire

IndieWire is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollywood and the expanding universes of TV and streaming". IndieWire is part of Penske Media.

MSN

MSN

MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95.

Soundtrack

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic
No.TitleContributing artistLength
1."You're So Cool"Hans Zimmer3:40
2."Graceland"Charlie Sexton3:26
3."In Dreams"John Waite3:45
4."Wounded Bird"Charles & Eddie5:11
5."I Want Your Body"Nymphomania4:18
6."Stars at Dawn"Hans Zimmer2:04
7."I Need a Heart to Come Home To"Shelby Lynne4:21
8."Viens Mallika Sous Le Dome Edais from Lakmé"Léo Delibes3:57
9."(Love Is) The Tender Trap"Robert Palmer2:37
10."Outshined"Soundgarden5:12
11."Amid the Chaos of the Day"Hans Zimmer4:54
12."Two Hearts"Chris Isaak3:33

Discover more about Soundtrack related topics

Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer

Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph.

Charlie Sexton

Charlie Sexton

Charles Wayne Sexton is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Sexton is best known for his years as a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band, though also has become well known as a music producer. Sexton co-founded the Arc Angels and created the Charlie Sexton Sextet. He was still a teenager when he gained fame for his 1985 hit, "Beat's So Lonely", from his debut album, Pictures for Pleasure.

John Waite

John Waite

John Charles Waite is an English musician. As a solo artist, he has released ten studio albums and is best known for the 1984 hit single "Missing You", which reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and the top ten on the UK Singles Chart. He was also the lead vocalist for the successful rock bands The Babys and Bad English.

Charles & Eddie

Charles & Eddie

Charles & Eddie were an American soul music duo composed of Charles Pettigrew and Eddie Chacon. Their single "Would I Lie to You?", taken from their 1992 debut album, Duophonic, won Ivor Novello Awards in 1993 in the Best Contemporary Song, Best Selling Song and International Hit of the Year categories. Between 1992 and 1995 they hit the top 40 three more times in the UK.

Shelby Lynne

Shelby Lynne

Shelby Lynne is an American singer and songwriter and the older sister of singer-songwriter Allison Moorer. The success of her pop rock album I Am Shelby Lynne (1999) led to her winning the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, despite it being her sixth studio album. She released a Dusty Springfield tribute album called Just a Little Lovin' in 2008. Since then she has started her own independent record label, called Everso Records, and released three albums: Tears, Lies and Alibis, Merry Christmas, and Revelation Road. Lynne is also known for her distinctive contralto voice.

Lakmé

Lakmé

Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille.

Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French Romantic composer, best known for his ballets and operas. His works include the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876) and the opera Lakmé (1883), which includes the well-known "Flower Duet".

(Love Is) The Tender Trap

(Love Is) The Tender Trap

"(Love Is) The Tender Trap" is a popular song composed by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics by Sammy Cahn.

Robert Palmer (singer)

Robert Palmer (singer)

Robert Allen Palmer was an English singer and songwriter. He was known for his powerful, soulful voice and sartorial elegance, and for his stylistic explorations, combining soul, funk, jazz, rock, pop, reggae, and blues. While his "four-decade career incorporated every genre of music", Palmer is best known "for the pounding rock-soul classic, 'Addicted to Love', and its accompanying video, which came to epitomise the glamour and excesses of the 1980s."

Outshined

Outshined

"Outshined" is a song by American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, "Outshined" was released in 1991 as the second single from the band's third studio album, Badmotorfinger (1991). It became the band's first single to reach the U.S. Mainstream Rock charts, where it peaked at number 45. The song was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album, A-Sides, the 2010 compilation album, Telephantasm and the live album Live on I-5.

Soundgarden

Soundgarden

Soundgarden was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984 by singer and drummer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto. Cornell switched to rhythm guitar in 1985, replaced on drums initially by Scott Sundquist, and later by Matt Cameron in 1986. Yamamoto left in 1990 and was replaced initially by Jason Everman and shortly thereafter by Ben Shepherd. The band dissolved in 1997 and re-formed in 2010. Following Cornell's death in 2017 and a year of uncertainty regarding the band's future, Thayil declared in October 2018 that Soundgarden had disbanded once again, though they did reunite in January 2019 for a one-off concert in tribute to Cornell.

Chris Isaak

Chris Isaak

Christopher Joseph Isaak is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional actor. He is widely known for his breakthrough hit and signature song "Wicked Game", as well as songs such as "Blue Hotel", "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" and "Somebody's Crying". He is known for his reverb-laden rockabilly revivalist style and wide vocal range. His songs generally focus on the themes of love, loss and heartbreak. With a career spanning four decades, Isaak has released a total of 13 studio albums, toured, and received numerous award nominations. He is often compared to Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, and Duane Eddy.

Home media

True Romance was originally released on Warner Home Video VHS September 12, 1994.

The DVD was released on September 24, 2002, as a Two-Disc set.[31] It was later released on Blu-ray on May 26, 2009.[32]

The 4K UHD Blu-ray was released on June 28, 2022.

Source: "True Romance", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 24th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Romance.

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Further Reading

Quentin Tarantino

Pulp Fiction

Christopher Walken

Gary Oldman

Christian Slater

Patricia Arquette

Tony Scott

The Mack

Crimson Tide (film)

Performance (film)

Christopher Walken on stage and screen

List of awards and nominations received by Christopher Walken

Quentin Tarantino filmography

Vista Theatre (Los Angeles)

Robbers (The 1975 song)

Massimo Lodolo

Quentin Tarantino's unrealized projects

Severance (TV series)
See also
References
  1. ^ "TRUE ROMANCE (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 1993-10-08. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2012-11-16.
  2. ^ "True Romance (1993) - Overview". TCM.com. 2015-03-05. Archived from the original on 2017-01-06. Retrieved 2017-01-05.
  3. ^ "TRUE ROMANCE | American Cinematheque". Americancinemathequecalendar.com. Archived from the original on 2017-01-06. Retrieved 2017-01-05.
  4. ^ a b c "True Romance (1993)". boxofficemojo.com. The Numbers. Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2011-08-18.
  5. ^ "You're So Cool: Looking Back On 'True Romance' 20 Years Later". UPROXX. 2014-05-14. Archived from the original on 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
  6. ^ "Classic Film Review: True Romance Remains a Sweet, Distinctly Male Movie". Consequence of Sound. 2018-09-09. Archived from the original on 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
  7. ^ True Romance (1993), archived from the original on 2019-04-02, retrieved 2019-05-04
  8. ^ a b "Empire's 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time". Empire. June 23, 2017. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved March 16, 2018.
  9. ^ Lyttelton, Oliver (2012-08-20). "The Essentials: The 5 Best Tony Scott Films". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
  10. ^ "Celebrating the Films of Tony Scott". Film School Rejects. 2018-06-22. Archived from the original on 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
  11. ^ Spitz, Marc (25 April 2008). "True Romance: 15 Years Later". maxim.com. Maxim. Archived from the original on 16 August 2011. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  12. ^ "True Romance". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Archived from the original on 2015-12-11. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  13. ^ "True Romance Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2020-08-20. Retrieved 2020-09-18.
  14. ^ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com. Archived from the original on 2018-01-02. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  15. ^ Villarreal, Phil. "Review: True Romance". Arizona Daily Star. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008.
  16. ^ Travers, Peter (10 September 1993). "True Romance: Movie Review". rollingstone.com. Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 27 February 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  17. ^ "True Romance". rogerebert.com. 10 September 1993. Archived from the original on 2013-06-08. Retrieved 2011-01-17.
  18. ^ Harrington, Richard (10 September 1993). "True Romance". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2012-11-04. Retrieved 2011-01-17.
  19. ^ Maslin, Janet (10 September 1993). "True Romance: Desperadoes, Young at Heart With Gun in Hand". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2012-04-16. Retrieved 2011-01-17.
  20. ^ Spitz, Marc (25 April 2008). "True Romance: 15 Years Later". Maxim. Archived from the original on 12 February 2013. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  21. ^ "You Need To Rewatch These '90s Cult Classics". Bustle. Archived from the original on 2018-09-24. Retrieved 2018-09-23.
  22. ^ Lyttelton, Oliver. The 10 Best Dennis Hopper Performances, On What Would Have Been His 76th Birthday Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine. IndieWire. May 17, 2012. Retrieved December 5, 2012.
  23. ^ True Romance Unrated Director's Cut DVD commentary
  24. ^ True Romance (1993) - Drexl Spivey. MSN Movies. 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2012.
  25. ^ Serafino, Jason. The 25 Coolest Drug Dealers In Movies Archived 2012-12-27 at the Wayback Machine. Complex. October 24, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2012.
  26. ^ Freeman, Thomas (March 21, 2018). "Gary Oldman Is Turning 60, So Revisit His 10 Best Roles of All Time". Maxim. Archived from the original on July 5, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
  27. ^ Murray, Robin (April 28, 2014). "The 1975 – Robbers (Explicit)". Clash. Archived from the original on July 16, 2014. Retrieved June 29, 2014.
  28. ^ Larson, Jeremy (February 27, 2013). "Charli XCX announces debut album, True Romance". Archived from the original on February 7, 2022.
  29. ^ Svetkey, Benjamin (April 18, 2008). "'Pineapple Express': High hopes for James Franco". Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc. Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved July 15, 2008.
  30. ^ Biskind, Peter (March 31, 2007). "An American Family". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on January 15, 2016. Retrieved August 19, 2012.
  31. ^ Indvik, Kurt (July 3, 2002). "Warner Bows First Premium Video Line". hive4media.com. Archived from the original on August 28, 2002. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
  32. ^ "True Romance Blu-ray". Archived from the original on 2019-07-07. Retrieved 2019-07-07 – via www.blu-ray.com.
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