True Romance
This review is sponsored by
Details At A Glance
General
|
Extras
|
Category |
Action |
Theatrical Trailer(s) |
Yes, 1 - 1.78:1, Dolby Digital 2.0 |
Rating |
|
Other Trailer(s) |
Yes, 3 - Dolby Digital Greek, Pulp Fiction, Jackie
Brown |
Year Released |
1993 |
Commentary Tracks |
None |
Running Time |
116:04 Minutes |
Other Extras |
Untitled Featurette
Filmographies - Cast
Menu Audio
Trivia |
RSDL/Flipper |
No/No |
Cast & Crew
|
Start Up |
Menu |
Region |
4 |
Director |
Tony Scott |
Studio
Distributor |
Roadshow Home Entertainment
|
Starring |
Christian Slater
Patricia Arquette
Dennis Hopper
Val Kilmer
Gary Oldman
Brad Pitt
Christopher Walken |
Case |
Brackley |
RRP |
$34.95 |
Music |
Hans Zimmer |
Video
|
Audio
|
Pan & Scan/Full Frame |
None |
MPEG |
2.0 |
Widescreen Aspect Ratio |
2.35:1 |
Dolby Digital |
2.0 |
16x9 Enhancement |
|
Soundtrack Languages |
English (Dolby Digital 2.0 ,
384 Kb/s)
English (MPEG 2.0 Silent, 64 Kb/s) |
Theatrical Aspect Ratio |
2.35:1 |
Miscellaneous
|
Macrovision |
Yes |
Smoking |
Yes |
Subtitles |
None |
Annoying Product Placement |
No |
Action In or After Credits |
No |
Plot Synopsis
Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) is a rather
lonesome guy who works in a comic book shop, and he spends his birthday
watching kung-fu movies at the local theatre. His boss decides to do something
nice, and hires a prostitute to go find Clarence (not too hard a task since
he spends all his time in that theatre) and show him a good time. The prostitute
that is sent out for this purpose, however, has only been on the job for
four days, and this is a fact that the girl in question, Alabama Whitman
(Patricia Arquette) shares with Clarence after falling in love with
him. Funnily enough, they quickly marry, but then there is the small matter
of Alabama's pimp, a rather slimy, ugly sod by the name of Drexl Spivey
(Gary Oldman). Clarence decides to let him know that Alabama is
off the market, so to speak. The confrontation gets bloody, however, and
Drexl's career in the pimp business is soon quite dramatically shortened,
while Clarence retrieves a suitcase that he believes contains Alabama's
possessions. Upon opening and inspecting the case, however, he finds that
it actually contains half a million dollars worth of cocaine. Naturally
enough, the people who supplied Drexl with this cocaine want it back, and
in this case the supplier in this distribution deal is a rather nasty mob
boss named Vincenzo Coccotti (Christopher Walken), who manages to
track Clarence down because Clarence, being the complete dill that he is,
left his driver's license at the scene of his battle with Drexl. Clarence
goes and meets with his dad, Clifford (Dennis Hopper), and so does
Vincenzo, in a rather nasty scene that I will get into later for certain
reasons.
There's really very little else to this film except
for a string of cameos that are so brief that you'll easily miss them if
you blink (I know that I certainly did). Both
Brad Pitt and Samuel
L. Jackson spend less than five minutes a piece in this film, and it
wouldn't surprise me to learn that Bronson Pinchot only agreed to
appear in this film as a bumbling drug dealer because his career has gone
nowhere since he appeared in Perfect Strangers (not that
this is particularly surprising or unwarranted). To be perfectly honest
with you, this film stretches credulity to the absolute limit, almost as
much as the recent film version of Mission: Impossible, in
fact. Sadly, the film also really lacks some genuinely likeable characters,
as the masturbatory nature of the dialogue that is rather common to all
films penned by Quentin Tarantino is in full force from pretty much
all of the characters. Watching this film reminds me of why I have such
a major aversion to anything that the man writes or has any involvement
with.
Transfer Quality
Video
This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1,
complete with 16x9 enhancement, which begs the question of why this transfer
looks so damned awful. It cannot be blamed on the source material, because
it looked a hell of a lot better than this on VHS. I believe the major
problem is that Roadshow Home Entertainment attempted to cram far too much information
onto a single layer, at the expense of the video's clarity. One of the
biggest problems with the transfer is that the film itself runs for one
hundred and sixteen minutes, which necessitates a low transfer rate to
fit the entire feature onto the one layer in the first place. The sharpness
of this transfer is pretty much non-existent, although this is one problem
that mostly has a fair amount to do with the cinematography. There was
a hell of a lot more sharpness and detail during Alabama's confrontation
with a hitman about midway through the film, however, during the VHS version.
Shadow detail was consistently average, and low-level noise was well-masked
by the ever present film grain.
Colour saturation was dull and muted from the beginning
to the end, giving the film a certain kind of fifty-year-old look that
is quite tiring to look at, and I can certainly recall much more youthful
looking hues in the film when I saw it on VHS video. MPEG artefacts were
minor, but the necessarily low bit-rate resulted in some slight macro-blocking
in the background of some shots. Film-to-video artefacts were minor, with
some aliasing making its presence felt from time to time. Film artefacts,
however, were quite prevalent, with all sorts of black and white marks
making their presence known throughout the picture.
This brings me to one major problem with Village
Roadshow's presentation of the film: the complete and utter absence of
subtitles, even when they were part and parcel of the original theatrical
exhibition. After Clifford's conversation with Vincenzo, two of Vincenzo's
men make a couple of utterances at each other in Sicilian, and they were
subtitled during the original theatrical exhibition. While they have nothing
particularly clever to say, this is an artistic butchery that should not
be tolerated.
Audio
There is only one track containing any actual audio
on this DVD: English in Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround encoding, which
I believe to be the way the film was originally presented. It would have
been nice to see another audio track in Italian or Spanish, but this is
a minor quibble compared to the other problems with this disc. The other
track is a silent MPEG 2.0 track, which is a waste of vital space on the
disc that could have been used to slightly improve the abysmal video quality.
The dialogue was quite clear and easy to understand throughout the film,
even when Gary Oldman carries the schtick of some ugly white man
who wants to be black. Audio sync was not a problem at any point in the
film on my equipment, but there was a few examples of some rather sloppy
ADR work here and there.
The was some score music by Hans Zimmer, and
it is a somewhat quirky effort when it actually becomes noticeable, which
is not often. A consistent theme runs throughout the film which is heavily
reliant on percussion, while some known classical pieces are also used.
Overall, this score music is well-suited to the film it is for, and thus
leaves little lasting impression with me.
Although this is a surround-encoded mix, the mix
is generally very front and centre, with little use made of the surrounds
at all. While the soundtrack is generally very supportive of the film,
it is also quite limited in terms of presence. The action sequences cry
out for a more immersive sound than the Dolby Digital 2.0 mix can really
give. The subwoofer was not used at all, even during the many bass-heavy
action sequences.
Extras
Given that the total time these extras, combined with
the film itself, take up is getting close to two and a half hours, I have
to concede that sometimes less is definitely more.
Menu
The menu contains some stills from the film, as well
as some rather crummy graphics that have little thematic relevance to the
film. All the menus are 16x9 enhanced, and most of them are accompanied
by audio that sounds like a MIDI sequence.
Theatrical Trailer
The trailer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1,
with 16x9 enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio. A great
number of the shots used to comprise it look better here than they do in
this presentation of the film, the most notable example being shots from
Alabama's confrontation in a hotel room with a mob gunman, which looked
horizontally stretched and badly faded during the film itself.
Theatrical Trailers - Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction
These two trailers are presented under
a menu that is labelled "More Tarantino", which I think pretty much says
it all. Both of them are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with 16x9
enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio. Both of them
are also presented with an abundance of film artefacts.
Filmographies
Filmographies for the principal cast are included with
some small biographical details. The manner in which the film listings
are presented makes for a somewhat annoying reading experience.
Trivia
No, Ian, you're not the
only one who finds this stuff of a rather limited appeal.
R4 vs R1
There are three main versions of this DVD available;
the Region 4 version, the Region 1 version and a UK Region 2 version. Both
the Region 1 version and the Region 4 version are deficient in one area
or another. The Region 1 version is not 16x9 enhanced. The Region 4 version,
as described in this review, suffers from poor image quality. The Region
2 version, on the other hand, reportedly
has much better image quality, and better audio to boot.
Region 1
|
Region 2
|
Region 4
|
Additional Pan & Scan version of the movie
|
No Pan & Scan version of the movie
|
No Pan & Scan version of the movie
|
Not 16x9 enhanced
|
16x9 enhanced
|
16x9 enhanced
|
English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack
|
English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
|
English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack
|
No additional extras
|
No extras
|
Featurette
Trailers for Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown
|
It would certainly appear that the Region 2 version
of this disc is the version of choice, as it has 16x9 enhancement, Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound, and a reportedly
much better-looking video transfer due to the space freed up on the disc
due to the absence of the lame extras. Although I still haven't confirmed
that the Region 2 version has RSDL formatting, which would have made the
transfer even more superior, it is definitely superior to the Region 1
and Region 4 counterparts.
Summary
True Romance is a film of very limited
value, presented on a distinctly average DVD.
The video quality is terrible, and inferior to current-generation
VHS in one of the most energetic moments of the film.
The audio quality is good enough to just barely save
the disc from the Hall Of Shame.
The extras are detrimental to the film itself, and
thus should not have been included.
Video |
|
Audio |
|
Extras |
|
Plot |
|
Overall |
|
© Dean McIntosh (my
bio sucks... read it anyway)
April 11, 2000.
Review Equipment
|
|
|
DVD |
Toshiba SD-2109, using S-video output |
Display |
Samsung CS-823AMF (80 cm), 16:9 mode/4:3 mode, using
composite and S-video inputs |
Audio Decoder |
Built In (Amplifier) |
Amplification |
Sony STR-DE835 |
Speakers |
Panasonic S-J1500D Front Speakers, Sharp CP-303A Back
Speakers, Philips FB206WC Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Subwoofer |