_True Romance_ This is the kind of movie that prompts my academically inclined friends to ask me, "How can you watch this?" Yes, it's violent, rude, loud, and fast. I might call it intelligent, ironic violence. But what does that mean? _True Romance_ is a genre picture with brains. It's a movie for people who have seen too many movies like it, couple-on-the-run action-thrillers that reinforce all the gender and class stereotypes that give Hollywood a well-deserved bad name. Written by Quentin (_Reservoir Dogs_) Tarantino (who has clearly seen too many of these movies) and directed by Tony (brother of Ridley) Scott (who made one, _Beverly Hills Cop II_), it's a brutal, hilarious, self-consciously trashy excursion across a U.S. mindscape, inhabited by a killer cast and an arsenal of cultural images, from _Bonnie and Clyde_ to _Badlands_, from to Sam Peckinpah to Martin Scorsese to Tamra Davis. Mostly, though, it features a remarkable girl as narrator, Alabama (Patricia Arquette), a character who seems to have gotten away from the film, whose strength is her sense of removal from the guy posturing that takes up so much of the film's parodic energy. Which isn't to say that she's not included in the parody. Alabama is a nice trashy girl, the kind featured in B movies. Christian Slater is Clarence Worley, a music store employee and Elvis aficionado who's spending his birthday alone at a Sonny Chiba triple feature. The beautiful Alabama appears - as if by magic - and spills popcorn on his head. After an evening of diner chatter and incredible sex, she confesses that she's a prostitute hired by his paternalistic boss. Alabama and Clarence realize that they have found true romance: they pledge mutual, eternal passion and get married. Clarence, however, has self-image issues, which he is working through in private, apparently imaginary conversations with someone who resembles the King himself (Val Kilmer). They decide that, in order to certify his masculinity and claim Alabama as his own, Clarence must face down her exceptionally vicious pimp (Gary Oldman) and recover her belongings. Amid the excitement of this confrontation (which is considerable: lots of handheld camera and blood flying), Clarence picks up the wrong suitcase, containing half a million dollars worth of cocaine. The film italicizes this and other cliches, splashing them across the screen with vivid colors and blitzy editing. Worried that Alabama will condemn his violent escapade, Clarence tries to hide his cuts and bumps. Alabama, however, is undaunted: she throws her arms around him, sobbing, "I think what you did was so romantic!" Their love confirmed, they take off to Los Angeles to sell off their liability and live happily ever after. The American Way. First they go see Mr. Worley, an ex-cop turned security guard, living in a trailer with his big black dog. This being a chase movie, Clarence and Alabama are pursued by a variety of villains and cops, thus they they seek dad's advice. It's a little unnerving to imagine Dennis Hopper as anyone's father, probably worse to think that he's the least scary character in this movie. After the newlyweds have left, he's visited by Christopher Walken (as Coccotti, the film's requisite Sicilian gangster in search of his goods). It's a contest of psycho-wills: Whose stare is the buggiest? Whose laughter is the creepiest? Who's going to implode first? The couple's leap into the superficial hyperspace of LA takes place as a literal rollercoaster ride: they meet their buyer's representative (a deadpan Bronson Pinchot), at an amusement park. The pace, already breakneck, accelerates. More hoodlums show up. Alabama is jumped by one of Coccotti's henchpeople, a darksuited, philosophically-inclined assassin who could have walked out of "America's Most Wanted" or _Goodfellas_. Her exceptional resistance results in a grueling scene that grants a woman rare equal violence time. It also makes you wonder, is this what Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep, and Geena Davis have in mind as they're signing up for next year's female action pictures? Put another way, why is the big money is in these movies? _True Romance_'s insistence on the consequences of all this savagery (Alabama's face is bruised and swollen for the duration) doesn't slow it down. But it doesn't let you off the hook either, it makes you uncomfortable to see her explain it away as a basketball accident. And there's more. The potential buyer (Saul Rubinek) is a self-obsessed producer whose single hit is a Vietnam film called, ingeniously, _Coming Home in a Body Bag_. The rushes for the sequel, _Bodybags II_, play as background for the delirious climax: choppers against a red sky (how many times have we seen this Vietnam movie?). By the time everyone, including impeccably rat-a-tat cops Christopher Penn and Tom Sizemore, catch up with the deal, the difference between good and bad guys (if there was one) is long forgotten. And could it surprise anyone that there's a happy ending to be pulled out of such incredible catastrophe? A _Newsweek_ poll might explain that my affection for this movie is based on the fact that I watch too much MTV, cop movies, and/or television news, frustration with my job and/or life, or anger at institutions and/or abstractions. But its mix of headiness and satire, its persistent, painful pokes in the metaphorical ribs about machismo via Elvis and outrageous cops and gangsters (not to mention Dennis Hopper, a major poke all by himself) makes this a cannier movie than a first glance would suggest.