The clinically style-obsessed Tony Scott might not have been everybody's choice to helm a Tarantino script just as St Quentin was white-hot (seems a while ago now, huh?), but he made a splendid 1993 pulpy pot-boiler which, in sum, outshines its pithy but disjointed parts. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the doomed Detroit lovers-on-the-run with a suitcase of coke, negotiating baroque badlands after Slater kills sleazoid pimp Gary Oldman and his comedy dreadlocks. Everyone who's anyone turns up to harass the couple and their sad dad Dennis Hopper. Christopher Walken's in his element as their ruthless pursuer; Brad Pitt's a chuckle as a fazed Beavis. The violence may look dated and gratuitous now, but there's enough savage screwball farce to keep you grinning malevolently.
The clinically style-obsessed Tony Scott might not have been everybody’s choice to helm a Tarantino script just as St Quentin was white-hot (seems a while ago now, huh?), but he made a splendid 1993 pulpy pot-boiler which, in sum, outshines its pithy but disjointed parts. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the doomed Detroit lovers-on-the-run with a suitcase of coke, negotiating baroque badlands after Slater kills sleazoid pimp Gary Oldman and his comedy dreadlocks. Everyone who’s anyone turns up to harass the couple and their sad dad Dennis Hopper. Christopher Walken’s in his element as their ruthless pursuer; Brad Pitt’s a chuckle as a fazed Beavis. The violence may look dated and gratuitous now, but there’s enough savage screwball farce to keep you grinning malevolently.
