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Created Nov 24, 2018 06:34PM PST • Edited Nov 25, 2019 12:29AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Quentin Tarantino defines True Romance more than the major stars who are in it – Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson & James Gandolfini included – or its big-time director, Top Gun Tony Scott. Pulp fiction and Mexican standoffs mark this crime-romance as a Tarantino classic, if hardly his best work.

   A 25 year-old Patricia Arquette had her breakout role in True Romance as a crazy-hot Southern blonde. Her erotic effervescence elevates the movie, albeit not far above its hoary cliches. The year was 1993. Tarantino had yet to perfect the irony he would employ to blockbuster effect a year later in Pulp Fiction.

   Bottom line: True Romance is considered a classic in many corners of the world, but not in this one.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Big names don’t all perform big time in True Romance.

   • Patricia Arquette scores nearly in Marilyn Monroe territory as a ditzy blonde.
   • Christian Slater looks the part of pretty-boy criminal but lacks the baritone to pull it off.
   • Dennis Hopper, where have ye gone?
   • Val Kilmer pops up.
   • Gary Oldman is nigh-on unrecognizable as an inner-city crack dealer.
   • Brad Pitt doesn’t jump offscreen as Christian Slater’s stoner roommate.
   • Christopher Walken is great, naturally, as a Mafia Don.
   • James Gandolfini as an eager hitman
   • Bronson Pinchot is better than good as a Hollywood flunky.
   • Samuel L. Jackson as Big Don
   • Michael Rapaport
   • Saul Rubinek as an obnoxious Hollywood agent

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   Patricia Arquette

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

   Walken, Hopper, Gandolfini

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Quentin Tarantino wrote True Romance along with an uncredited Roger Avary, who also wrote parts of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.

    Tarantino aside, the film was directed by Tony Scott, Ridley Scott’s brother and a big time director himself.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

17. Sex Titillating 2.1

18. Violence Brutal 3.5

19. Rudeness Profane 3.4

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.5

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.3

23. Biological Supernatural 3.1

24. Physical Surreal 2.1