A Couple, A Suitcase Of Cocaine, And A Whole Lot Of Trouble | True Romance

[00:00:00]Welcome back to Back to the Future, where I  watch the full movie so you don't have to.

[00:00:04]I'm your host, Dwen, and today we're diving into  "True Romance" from 1993, starring pretty much everybody in Hollywood. Clarence Worley spends  his birthday alone in a Detroit theater watching a Sunny Chiba movie where he meets Alabama Whitman,  who apparently shares his love of kung fu, Elvis, and emotional isolation. The date continues when  he takes her back to the comic book store where he works, and she finds herself a bit smitten.  Clarence and Alabama spend the night together and before morning she confesses she was hired as his  birthday call girl. The twist is she actually fell for him. She tells him that she's only been a call  girl for 4 days and he's only her third customer.

[00:00:43]Clarence fell for her too, so he doesn't care  that this romance began as a gift from his boss.

[00:00:48]They get married almost immediately because, why  not? Clarence doesn't see her as damaged goods.

[00:00:53]She's quite the opposite. She's the girl of  his dreams, and Alabama sees someone who wants her for more than a horizontal transaction. An  imaginary Elvis comes to Clarence and nudges him toward confronting Alabama's pimp, Drexl Spivey.  With that encouragement from Big E, Clarence grabs a gun and somehow thinks this is the smart thing  to do. Clarence goes to see Drexl with the goal of paying him to release Alabama from his employment.  However, Drexl is vicious, seriously unstable, and instantly dismissive of Clarence. When  Drexl is presented with an empty envelope, the meeting quickly turns violent. Drexl and his  bodyguard attack Clarence and beat the tar out of him. Just when you think Clarence is toast, he  pulls out his gun and shoots Drexl in the crotch, point blank. He then takes out the bodyguard with  ease before putting Drexl out of his misery with a couple more shots to the face. During his  hasty exit, Clarence grabs what he thinks is Alabama's suitcase, but back home, they discover  it's packed with cocaine. There's enough there to properly finance their honeymoon and more.  Clarence and Alabama go to see Clarence's dad, Clifford, a retired cop who still has enough  instincts to know their situation is bad.

[00:01:57]Clifford learns the police think Drexl's murder  looks like gang retaliation, which gives the newlyweds a small window to make a run for it.  Clarence and Alabama leave for Los Angeles, hoping Clarence's actor friend, Dick Richie,  can help them sell the drugs. Back in Detroit, mob boss Vincenzo Coccotti tracks the theft  back to Clarence through his driver's license he dropped at Drexl's place. Coccotti interrogates  Clifford, who realizes he probably isn't walking out of there alive. Clifford decides that  instead of giving up his son, he's going out in a blaze of glory by savagely insulting Coccotti's  Italian heritage. Coccotti laughs off Clifford's racist history lesson and kills Clifford himself.  Usually, he would just have one of his men do it, but Clifford earned the right to be killed  by the top dog. With Clifford out of the way, they search around and find Dick's LA address  on the refrigerator. In LA, Clarence reunites with his buddy Dick, who's a struggling actor that  lives with his stoner friend Floyd. Clarence needs Dick to use his Hollywood connections to help  him sell the coke. The only person Dick can think of is his friend Elliot Blitzer, who works as an  assistant for big-time film producer Lee Donowitz.

[00:02:59]Only someone like Donowitz could use and afford  that much cocaine. Per Alabama's suggestion, they meet Elliot at an amusement park of all places.  Elliot wants to know where Clarence got the drug.

[00:03:09]So, Clarence takes him on a roller coaster ride  and makes up a story about helping a friend that stole it from police evidence a couple years back.  Clarence says he's a good cop with a wife and kids who knows Clarence won't rat him out. Elliot  brings the deal to Donowitz, who is curious enough about the business opportunity to want  to meet with Clarence in person and inspect the product before putting real money on the  table. Meanwhile, mob enforcer Virgil shows up at Dick's house looking for him and instead ends up  talking to Floyd. When he inquires about Clarence, Floyd tells him where they're staying. And with  that info, he leaves and Floyd has no idea who he was just talking to. While Clarence is out getting  food, Virgil finds Alabama alone in their motel room. He brutally beats her for information,  but Alabama's a lot tougher than she looks.

[00:03:51]She takes it like a champ and fights back by  putting a corkscrew through his foot. Naturally, this sends Virgil into a rage, and he  sends her fly through the shower glass.

[00:03:59]She retaliates by smearing soap in his face and  hitting him over the head with the toilet lid. As he pulls his gun, she hits him with hairspray and  a lighter. Virgil's head is now a flaming ball, and she hits him with a corkscrew again as he  falls down. She goes into full berserker mode, grabs his shotgun, and starts unloading on him.  So, yeah, he's dead. Clarence returns to find the room destroyed, Virgil dead, and his wife beaten  to hell. He scoops her up, grabs the drugs, and they leave in the car as quick as possible. Poor  Clarence is guilt ridden for leaving her alone and not being there to protect her. Elliot gets  pulled over with cocaine on him, like actually all over his face. Having uncut cocaine puts  him in front of Detectives Dimes and Nicholson, and it doesn't take much for Elliot to realize  how screwed he is, and he offers up a bigger fish, and he's willing to wear a wire. Clarence hides  out with Alabama and helps patch her up as they plan their future together once the drug deal  goes through. Their planned destination is to get away to Cancun and start over from scratch.  Meanwhile, Coccotti's crew load up like they're getting ready to go into battle while Elliot  gets fitted with his wire. He's scared shitless, but Dimes and Nicholson assure him that they're  just down the hall and have him covered. Clarence, Alabama, Dick, and Elliot arrive at the  Ambassador Hotel with a suitcase of cocaine.

[00:05:11]Clarence notices Elliot sweating through his  soul in the elevator and pulls a gun on him, sensing something is wrong. Dimes and Nicholson  are listening in as Clarence puts the gun to Elliot's head. Elliot panics and begs for his  life, so Clarence apologizes for freaking him out.

[00:05:26]The mood is now cracked wide open, making this  the most entertaining sting operation Dimes and Nicholson have ever seen. Coccotti's crew shows  up at Dick's apartment with shotguns in hand, but only find our buddy Floyd high as a kite. All they  had to do was ask, and Floyd casually tells them where they can find Clarence. Elliot, Clarence,  Alabama, and Dick arrive at Lee's suite where they're met by armed guards. They pat everyone  down and don't like the fact that Clarence is packing, but Lee waltzes in and diffuses the  tension by having Elliot do the introductions.

[00:05:54]The meeting gets started with Clarence telling Lee  that he's a big fan of his movies. Playing to his ego puts him at ease and he becomes comfortable  enough with Clarence to ask to see the goods.

[00:06:03]Lee does a quick taste test and is interested, but  first he wants to know how Clarence came across so much Coke. They step out onto the patio where  Clarence tells him the same story he told Elliot, trying to sound street wise, improvising as he  goes. Elliot tries to get as close as he can, but he's sweating so badly that the wire in his  crotch starts shorting out, causing the police to have trouble hearing what they're saying. Elliot's  sweaty junk is jeopardizing their whole case, and they have to scramble to get the signal back.  Lee tests Clarence's story, pushing for details, and Clarence holds his nerve and convinces Lee  that his story is true. That's enough for the police to hear as they gear up to go make their  bust. The deal is done. Lee wants the drugs, and Alabama's handed a suitcase full of money to count  while Clarence dips out to go to the bathroom.

[00:06:45]His imaginary Elvis shows up to watch him pee and  to tell him he's doing a great job. While Clarence is chatting it up with Elvis in the bathroom,  Dimes and Nicholson and a bunch of other cops bust into the suite with guns drawn. They quickly find  themselves squaring off against the armed guards with Dick, Alabama, Elliot, and Lee caught in the  middle. Even Lee is surprised when his own guards refuse to put down their weapons. Turns out his  guards really don't like cops and they're ready to throw down. The guards and cops are surprised  when the mop bust in armed with shotguns. Now we have a Mexican standoff. Everything is escalating  quickly in the room and Clarence has no clue what's happening because apparently the bathroom  is soundproof. The room goes quiet when Elliot accidentally exposes himself as an informant by  asking the police if he can leave. Lee realizes he's been set up and he's pissed. So pissed that  he forgets that he's standing in the middle of a shooting gallery. He throws his coffee in Elliot's  face which literally lights the fuse on this powder keg. Nicholson fires first and kills Lee.  Then his bodyguards open up and Nicholson goes down. Alabama and Dick are smart enough to hit  the deck as the bullets start flying while Elliot decides to stand up and catch as many of them as  he can. Cops and mobsters are dropping like flies and the bodyguards fire blindly throughout the  room. Clarence comes out of the bathroom just in time for Dimes to shoot him in the head. Alabama  sees him go down and crawls her way through the chaos, terrified that their insane love story  might end before it even gets going. Dick panics and throws the suitcase into the air, sending  the cocaine flying as bullets rip through it. The drugs burst into a white cloud over the gunfight  while Dick makes a run for safety. After all that, the score is four left alive in the room. One  mob guy, two cops, and one wounded bodyguard.

[00:08:21]Everyone else is taking a dirt nap. The mob guy  is the first to go down, but he takes one of the cops with him, leaving Dimes as the only one with  a badge breathing. The wounded guard is crying out for an ambulance, but Dimes isn't feeling very  helpful since the dude killed his partner. He does offer to call the guy a hearse just before he  executes him. Alabama hears the gunshots and picks up Clarence's gun and she shoots him to protect  Clarence. The gunfire is stopped. Everyone is dead and the cocaine is ruined. Worst drug deal ever.  Alabama thinks Clarence is dead, but then he comes too. He had just been grazed by the eye and it  looked worse than it was. They grab the money and make their way out of the hotel while the  police close in. Somehow the two people least qualified to survive a shootout managed to walk  away with all the cash. The movie ends in Mexico where Alabama narrates her new life with Clarence  and their baby son Elvis. After all the bullets, blood, cocaine, and catastrophe, their true  romance survived. The end. And that's "True Romance." Like a lot of movies, it didn't do well  at the box office, but it gained a large following once it came out on video. Maybe it's because  this movie had a lot of big actors in it, and it's super useful when you're playing "Six Degrees  of Kevin Bacon." The only question I had remaining at the end was this. What happened to Floyd? Did  the mob guys kill him or did they leave him alone like Virgil did? Let me know what you think in the  comments below. If you enjoyed this breakdown, hit like, drop your favorite scene in the comments,  and subscribe for more retro cinema every week.

[00:09:43]Thanks for taking time out of your day to watch  and I'll see you on the next Back to the Future.