Delayed Reaction: True Romance

The Pitch: Either a quieter Natural Born Killers or a louder Thelma & Louise.

A lot of people had to die to make me aware of this film and decide to see it. First, it was Tony Scott. Mixed in all the retrospectives about his career, which seemed to focus on Top Gun and Man on Fire, there kept being mention of this messy little 90s movie with a great cast. Not long after, James Gandolfini died. While The Sopranos got most of the press, people kept mentioning first being aware of him in that same 90s movie. At that point, I decided that it was safer for Christian Slater, Gary Oldman, Quintin Tarantino, and the rest of the people tied to this if I saw it. (It still took me 4 years, but no one else died since then, so there's no blood on my hands)

Honestly, I feel like I would've found it even without those two deaths. Eventually, I would've gotten close enough to seeing all the films based on Tarantino screenplays to seek this out too for completion's sake, or I would've been motivated to track down "that movie with Oldman as a pimp with dreadlocks" that kept popping up during career retrospectives when Oldman finally got his first Oscar nomination for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in 2011.

I'm not sure what to make of this movie. It's so messy that it works. Even though Tony Scott directed it, it still feels like a Tarantino movie. Apparently, the original screenplay told the story out of order. Scott and the editor(s) made it linear. That right there sums up why I have trouble with Tarantino in general. He doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. This is a confusing, twisty, wild movie as is. Putting it out of order would've been too much.

I'm pretty floored by all the different actors of note in this. Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Val Kilmer, Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Michael Rapaport, Dennis Hopper, Conchata Bronson Pinchot. Were they playing "90's Bingo"? If so, this must've been a cover-all round. Some people were used a lot. Some were used a little. I was never sure what to expect next or from whom. It's fun to watch a movie that sincerely feels like anything is on the table to happen next.

Maybe this movie is my way into Tarantino. Reservoir Dogs to True Romance to Pulp Fiction to From Dusk Til Dawn with credits in Natural Born Killers and Four Rooms in between. I can see how someone who followed him through that 5 year stretch could become an acolyte. His post-2000 work still weighs far too heavily to turn me though.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend