film

A barely believable ensemble cast including Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini and Val Kilmer was assembled by Tony Scott for 1993's glorious True Romance, which mixes hard-boiled crime with comic-book violence and delirious romance. Written by Quentin Tarantino, it follows the whirlwind relationship of Clarence Worley (Christian Slater), a lonely comic-book obsessive, and Alabama (Patricia Arquette), a sex worker he meets by chance. After a fatal flashpoint, the newly married couple flee Detroit for LA, with a suitcase full of cocaine and dreams of starting anew.

Scott's direction gives Tarantino’s dialogue a glossy, kinetic charge, and Hans Zimmer’s score amplifies the film’s woozy sense of extreme danger and extreme romance. An explosively charged love story in which devotion, bad decisions and criminal chaos collide at top speed.