True Romance

REVIEW
What seemed like an unlikely pairing of mucho-macho auteur Quentin Tarantino and British stylist-turned-Hollywood hack Scott has paid off in spades with a hip, bullet-strewn thriller that hits you so hard it makes you laugh. This high-energy Generation X road movie stars Slater as a trash culture-worshipping comic book salesman who meets happy hooker Arquette during a kung fu triple feature in Detroit. Taking inspiration from his imaginary "mentor" (the ghost of Elvis played by Kilmer), Slater decides to rescue his new love from her sexual servitude to a dreadlocked pimp (Oldman, in a marvelously over-the-top performance). After blowing him away, Slater accidentally picks up a suitcase full of cocaine. After a quickie marriage and a visit to the tattoo parlor, Slater and Arquette hightail it out of town in a purple Cadillac. Drawing from Sam Peckinpah, Hong Kong action flicks, David Lynch (on a good day), Sergio Leone and Jim Thompson novels, True Romance is a gritty, high-octane mishmash with a genuinely affecting romance between Slater and Arquette.

The unrated director's cut inludes two minutes of footage not seen theatrically.