Corona's Test Pattern wrote:DVD Review: True Romance

Warner Brothers
Single Sided, Dual Layered
Widescreen (1.85:1) Anamorphic
Dolby Digital 5.1 (English)/ Dolby DTS 5.1
September 24, 2002
$20.24 ($26.99 from DVD Empire at 30% Off)



Disc One:

• 3 Separate Feature-Length Audio Commentaries by Stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, Director Tony Scott and Writer Quentin Tarentino
• Feature-Length Storyboard Track
• Animated Interactive Menus
• Scene Access with Previews

Disc Two:

• Deleted and Extended Scenes with Optional Director Commentary
• Alternate Ending with Optional Director and Writer Commentaries
• Selective Commentaries with Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt and Michael Rapaport
• Interactive Behind the Scenes Featurette
• Animated Photo Gallery
• Vintage 1993 Featurette
• Theatrical Trailer and TV Spots
• Cast and Crew Film Highlights

DVD-ROM Features:

• Screenplay Viewer with Storyboards
• Original Production Notes
• Web Link

Two lovers are thrust into a dangerous situation. Alabama was a call-girl out on an arranged date with Clarence, a seemingly mild mannered worker from a comic book store who has a bit too much affection for all things Elvis and Sonny Chiba. When these two hook up the romantic sparks fly and they end up married the next day. This sets in motion a tense but fun romp where Clarence kills her pimp, finds that the suitcase of her stuff is really full of cocaine, and they head out to California before the pimp's associates can reclaim it.
This brings a few new players into the already packed roster of characters as Clarence's best friend tries to help them sell the coke to a Hollywood producer. The police break up the sale only to get interrupted themselves when the pimp's friends arrive to create one of the best gun fights in the cinema of the 90's.

Any one who read my last review (Reservoir Dogs) already knows of my affection for Quentin Tarantino's work. But this film is more than just his writing translated for the screen. It contains some of the best performances of some careers (Christian Slater, Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman ,etc) as well as introduced us to people we would come to know very well in the coming years(James Gandolfini, Patricia Arquette, Brad Pitt, Michael Rappaport, Tom Sizemore,etc).

Tony Scott rounded up some of the best people for this project and it shows in the film. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette show actual chemistry between them as the "Romance" progresses. You really feel for these characters by the end of the film.

But even though the title is True Romance this film is full of other great aspects. The whole discussion between Hopper and Walken makes the movie worth watching. Oldman's gritty take on the pimp and his eccentricities is a great counterpoint to Pitt's low key performance of the drug hazed Floyd.

While this movie has been out before on a cut-rate DVD this one makes up for that one's shortcomings. This set is chock full of creamy goodness in the features area as well as sporting the usual widescreen anamorphic transfer and Dolby sound we've all grown accustomed to.

The video transfer is very good, but I guess after all the harping by fans on previous releases they had to eventually start doing them all correctly. I only noticed a couple of scenes where the contrast was off enough that you had to squint to see details (the theatre scene was better than the previous edition but still not perfect), but for the most part it was very crisp and clear.

The audio is very good as well. Although this movie was made around 10 years ago it was still close to current in the techniques used to overlay the soundtrack and musical score. You can hear every word and every gunshot as Scott intended when he made the film. The atmosphere was perfect for the story.

There are too many features to go into detail on, but I'll try to hit the highlights (and lowlights) of the discs: The commentaries are fairly informative and there are a couple of eye opening stories about the shooting of the film by Scott. A lot of detail went into creating the commentaries and though at times it felt scripted it still filled out the overall story of how they made the film.

The other features on the first disc were all just window dressing to my mind. But it is the set's second disc that really gives you what we've all come to expect from DVD's in the last couple of years.

The Behind-the-Scenes featurette (and it's sub-chapters) show you lots of scenes from the movie as they go through the final walk through and rehearsals before showing you the behind the scenes view of the actual shoot. The Heart thing was a cute idea but it really took away from the flow of the main featurette...it would have been better to seperate them.

It is the deleted scenes and alternate ending though that really get to the movie buff. They show extended versions of several scenes as well as scenes that got cut before the films release. You get to see Clarence (Slater) as he first realizes that he is attracted to Alabama (Arquette) and that it looks like he'll actually get some (getting laid to a comic book geek is the equivalent of winning the lottery). The look is a priceless one.

We are also graced with another chance to oogle Arquette's body as she takes a bath with Clarence in one of the cut scenes where they discuss Janis Joplin and love. The alternate ending is also a welcome thing by most fans of DVD. You get to hear about other ways the film might have gone so rarely that finding one like this is priceless. I won't give it away here, but if you are a fan of this film you need to see it.

Overall, the DVD met and in places exceeded my expectations. I've gotten other recent DVD's that were Special Editions that didn't measure up (like Grease-come on, where are the features!!!) but True Romance delivers on it's promise. Get this one for your collection!!!!

Kevin Lee Galbreath

as well as introduced us to people we would come to know very well in the coming years(James Gandolfini, Patricia Arquette, Brad Pitt, Michael Rappaport, Tom Sizemore,etc).