True Romance - Director's Cut (1993) ***

The last time that I watched True Romance (1993) was eight years ago where I wrote that it hasn't aged well (my review here). My feelings haven't changed much. I first saw the film when I was 19 or 20 and for years I really loved it. In the past decade, not so much. I do think it has a ridiculously good cast and some great moments. It's occasionally fun and funny. But the whole of it leaves me empty. It's no all-timer.

David Lynch and Barry Gifford are to blame. As soon as I saw Wild At Heart (1990) and the similarities between the two films (both modern updates of the Bonnie and Clyde story), I just couldn't appreciate True Romance the same way anymore. I know they aren't exactly the same film, but WAH is weirder, wilder, and—compared to TR—underappreciated. My thoughts on WAH here.

Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern are more convincing in their roles and have better chemistry as Sailor and Lula than Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette do as Clarence and Alabama. Not to mention they are both better actors. The characters, dialogue (sorry, Quentin), scenarios, filmmaking (sorry, Tony), sex scenes, romance—all better in Wild At Heart. Additionally, the almost "heart warming," "feel good" Hans Zimmer score in TR (which is a rip-off of the Carl Orff song in Badlands (1973)) has always felt out of place to me and hasn't aged well either.

True Romance doesn't know what it wants to be—a romantic "comedy," a "serious" drama, a violent "mob" movie—and I suppose the mishmash is probably why some people love it. The jumble created by the film's tonal shifts doesn't grab me. I realize that Wild At Heart can be criticized for the same reasons, but sometimes it's hard to articulate exactly why we connect with one piece of art or character(s) the way we do, while others leave us feeling cold.

All that said, 3 stars for the talent involved across the board, but I've owned True Romance on both DVD and Blu-ray and seen it enough times in my life to determine that I can spend the rest of it in no rush to see this film again.