True Romance (Tarantino cut)

Out of respect for King Gezo of Dahomeyⁱ, this article will be written entirely in English.

Tru Romansⁱⁱ iz da totally eh fuck this premise. I originally thought it'd be a fun idea to write the entire thing in black slang (and I still think so) but unfortunately I'm not capable of executing it. I guess I don't care enough about black culture to be able to reproduce its particular pidgin. Could you do me a solid and imagine you're reading all this like you was my main man Sammy J ? Thanks.

True Romance is yet another one of QT's numerous explorations in black/white culture interplay. I can't discern whether he's any good at it or not, but I can readily confess that it'd be very convenient for him to indeed be good at it : dialogue flows, characters stand, the whole stuff makes sense and breathes. This is obviously rare, on film. Still, there's plenty of reasons to suspect he's pulling our leg. Homie to homie, "I think the bruda doth protest too much" ? I'm not saying it's either impossible or unlikely for a black guy to have read Shakespeare any more than I'm saying it's either impossible or unlikely for a sociopathic crime lord to have read Shakespeare (and in fact I know some that have). And yet... as part of a discussion about sexual practices, in which the prevailing oppinion is a very sane and also very relaxed normalcy (they eat the tuna) ? Shakespeare ? Seriously ? Not that I don't admire the craft of the writer, it is indeed over the top to the point that I can't call it anymore.ⁱⁱⁱ

The shattered remains of 1950s white culture, the ex-cop ex-drunk cabin-in-a-city dweller dad^iv, blonde Alabama happily entertaining herself with cartwheels^v, the slightly awkward hero-of-sorts makes for fabulous contrast. Tarantino may not be much for telling history, but he's certainly telling a story^vi.

Walken is absolutely at the top of his game, you've never seen a Don Vincenzo of that caliber. To add insult to injury, not only are Sicilians spawned by Niggers (well, Moors) as the old cop points out, but moreover the name of Coccotti pretty much ensures his grammy was a whore. Cause that's what it means, a cocotte is French for a diminutive female cock (coq) which through some Frenchy type of thinking denotes a prostitute. Sucks to be him, I guess.

Bradd Pit is pretty much in the one and only good, adequate, appropriate and fitting role of his entire career : he's doing Flock o' Pigeons from Pulp Fiction, ie the completely out of it stoner. This is what the man can do, impersonate a piece of furniture on the condition that it's nothing too fancy. He does it superbly, bravo.

Arquette is the definitive fury from Hell itself. After she stabs the fat grunt with a pocket corkscrew (twice), hits him over the head with a marble slab (twice, different slabs), sets him ablaze on hairspray and empties four rounds of shotgun in his face she proceeds to klonk him over the bloody stump where his head used to be with the bare metal of the rifle barrel. And then just howls. Sounds about right.

The Quarantino hero of the 1990s is this barely literate kid with a troubled past but strong moral ideas (Elvis halucinations optional, but if he really had to fuck a guy...) who goes into battle against the evils of this world with a sidearm in his boot and emerges victorious by means of getting lucky. That's soooo roooomaaaanticcc. It's also so very outdated, on the grounds that Internet grown kids can't work revolvers and nobody's getting all that lucky anymore anyway. I doubt anyone aspires to, either. A level 90 purple triple legendary +12 Axe of Zodiacal Carnage drop on the other hand... that's something to look forward to.

Final bodycount : Monty dead, Drexl dead, Clifford dead, the Sopranos guy, dead. Three policemen, dead. Four enforcers, dead. Two bodyguards, dead. One film producer, one film producer assistant, both dead. One hero, slightly redneck, dead. Alabama'd better get busy replacing all that carnage. Inexplicably, she has shoes on.

1. Seriously, isn't it quite amusing that the epicenter of African slave trade literally is called "da homey" ? [↩]
2. 1993, by Tony Scott, with Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken and Samuel L. Jackson (what a cast, eh ?) [↩]
3. He does this in Pulp Fiction too, the little scene discussing foot massaging. QT is a recipe man. [↩]
4. He's this side of the tracks. You may think the train is just there, but I'll bet you that's not the case. Wrong side of the tracks. [↩]
5. Which, you may be pleased to find, are called "roata tiganului" in Romanian, where tigan is the word for gypsy, -u is the definite article mark and -lui the possesive. There's remarkable superposition between nigger and niggardly in english and tigan and tiganeala in Romanian, which'd tend to indicate that people just have to pick on someone, preferably someone easily distinguishable and making up about a tenth of the population. [↩]
6. Read this last sentence in French, the pun actually works that way. And yes, still with Samuel L Jackson's voice. Just, in French this time. [↩]