True Romance

ost-“Reservoir Dogs” Quentin Tarrentino took his joyously warped head on a road trip and returned with this delicious parable. Director Tony Scott — his best film — did the rest. Thanks are due all around. Comic book salesman Clarence (Christian Slater) marries hooker Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette). She steals coke. They steal away to LA. The idea is to live happily ever in Rio. But there’s the matter of the stolen coke. The Scott-Tarantino tandem build a genuine romance from rotten foodstuffs (thanks to a roll call of usual suspects: Dennis Hopper, Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Samuel L. Jackson, James Gandolfini, and Gary Oldman — the pimp from Hell). The movie is uplifting and painful because you care about the lovers while knowing they don’t stand a chance. A stylish if unbelievable story that makes its own rules. It’s also a run-up to “Pulp Fiction.”