Jakub Flasz’s review published on Letterboxd:
Besides the film’s obvious overall quality, there are at least three major reasons why anyone trying to understand and contextualize Quentin Tarantino’s work should take a good look at True Romance.
First of all, one has to consider how much of a milestone in Tarantino’s career this film was. Even though it was released in 1993, a year after his directorial debut Reservoir Dogs, it was his first ever script and at the same time the most autobiographical of all of his work. In addition, I am told the original draft to True Romance was almost five hundred pages long and included a nested story about Clarence and Alabama wreaking havoc as they traversed the country, but he eventually removed it and turned into a separate script as they traversed the country, but he eventually removed it and turned into a separate script to what we now know as Natural Born Killers. He gave Tony Scott both True Romance and Reservoir Dogs and agreed to sell him one of the two, as he wanted to direct one of these films himself. The money he got from the sale allowed him to kickstart the development of Reservoir Dogs and endeared him to Scott who would later hire him as a script doctor on Crimson Tide and possibly other mostly uncredited gigs. In any case, even though it may look like a judgment error on Tarantino’s behalf to have parted ways with a script so personal to him, if it hadn’t been for Scott, Tarantino’s meteoric rise to stardom in the early 90’s would have likely never materialized.
Secondly, True Romance is a rare opportunity to disentangle Tarantino’s writing style from his approach to directing. As he quickly ceased being a screenwriter for hire, especially after Oliver Stone allegedly butchered his Natural Born Killers to the point where Tarantino openly disowned the film, there really isn’t a lot out there for you to research this subject. Given how From Dusk Till Dawn is decisively covered with Robert Rodriguez’s own artistic infatuation with schlocky exploitation which occasionally obscures the nuance of the writing, True Romance is really the best comparative tool to understand what Tarantino’s writing brings to a film and how everything changes when he stands behind the camera himself. This is in no way a criticism of Tony Scott’s direction; in fact, this is probably one of my personal favourites of his, if not the favourite. However, this bombastic tale inspired by Badlands, Bonnie And Clyde and Hong Kong genre cinema of the seventies and eighties shows perfectly how Tarantino’s own French New Wave-esque slant dictates the terms of any film he directs. Even though True Romance is steeped in popcultural references, they are mostly found within the text. Any visual nods, tableaus, winks and shots inspired by or directly lifted from other films are mostly missing. Of course, Tony Scott’s own directorial touch elevates the script perfectly and turns into an unforgettable genre experience, but – comparatively speaking – one can easily utilize this film to see just how infatuated Tarantino is with French New Wave in all of his directorial efforts.
Finally, True Romance sports a scene even Tarantino himself holds up as the best thing he has ever written – the scene with the infamous ‘Sicilian’ monologue. Of course, this mostly monologic exchange between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken would now have to compete with such great scenes as the opening to Inglourious Basterds, the scene from the same film where Michael Fassbender accidentally compromises his identity in front of an SS officer, or the truly great monologue by Leonardo Di Caprio in Django Unchained during filming of which he famously cut his hand open and seamlessly worked it into the film. Nevertheless, it is such a tight exercise in tension and release built very cleverly upon two simple concepts: the fact Sicilian mafiosos were traditionally extremely racist and Hopper’s effortless bravado.
There is much more to dissect about this film which only goes to show how great it is. From its pardonless approach to bloody violence, poetic approach to building set pieces and fantastic humour pervading the entire narrative, True Romance is a proper masterpiece both in Tony Scott’s and Quentin Tarantino’s catalogue. It is a film everyone should see and celebrate as a fantastic achievement of genre filmmaking.