Hey, a movie that was written by Quintin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. Sold. This has a great cast as well. How it coincides with Dirty Dancing, well, I’ll spell it out for you later.
Start Film
We meet Clarence (Christian Slater) and he’s at a bar talking to some lady about Jailhouse Rock and how if he had to fuck a man, he’d have to choose Elvis. He now gets talking Sonny Chiba, and yeah, it’s a Tarantino film after all. I just forget how loaded this cast is. Kilmer, Oldman, Pitt, Walken, Hopper, Gandolfini, Rapaport, Samuel L, Chirs Penn, Patricia Arquette, and even Bronson Pinchot, the guy who plays Balki in Perfect Strangers.
So Clarence is at a Street Fighter kung fu triple feature, and there’s like nobody in there. In comes Alabama (Patricia) and she spills popcorn on him. She played Kristin in Nightmare on Elm Street 3, you know, the best Nightmare. After the movies, she wants to get some pie with him, yes real pie. Not the other kind, you know who you are who I am talking to. They have the basic question type questions, she digs Burt Reynolds and Mickey Rourke. She is dressed like a classy broad. After pie, they go back to his place of work, a comic book store. He is teaching her about comics, so leads to making out and getting their nude on. So this is what I have been missing out on by not reading comic books? Fucking A! He wakes up, she’s outside and she’s all crying. She reveals that she was paid to be in the theater, she’s a call girl. Here we get the story. Clarence’s boss, Lance, hired her for Clarence’s birthday. He is pretty fucking happy, he was just happy that she didn’t have a dick. Don’t she have a sister who has a dick? Anyway, she doesn’t want him to think that she’s trash, and she is 100% monogamous. Now she is getting all kinds of emotional, and he is enamored with her, and she is with him as well. She thinks that she loves him. That can happen. She swears that she ain’t lying, and she won’t ever lie to him ever again.
They got themselves married. Now she gets a tattoo with his name on it, and we get some Billy Idol. I wouldn’t go so far as to……where have I heard this before? Pulp Fiction. There was also a character named Lance. There’s Samuel L, oh shit, Samuel L eats pussy and butt. Good for him. Damnit, Samuel L is already dead. I think that was Oldman who killed him. Clarence is having a mental talk with Elvis about killing Alabama’s pimp. So he’s talked himself into killing the pimp……seems smart, so he wants to find him. Her pimp is Oldman, who is Drexl Spivey.
Clarence, this is a terrible idea I do believe. I haven’t seen this in years, so I have forgotten damn near everything aside from the greatest scene of this film. OK, so Drexl is the pimp, I feel better. Oldman just looks ridiculous, but I enjoy how he always morphs into whatever he needs to do. Drexl is just crazy but funny. Clarence gives him an envelope to pay him for Alabama, and naturally, it’s empty. Drexl finally lunges and pounces on Clarence. Fight!!! I love the Mortal Kombat type music in the background as Drexl and his big hoss whoop on him. Well, now Drexl has CLarence’s address. Dumbass. Drexl’s face is pretty cut up. He gets distracted, and Clarence shoots Drexl in the dick. Who does he think he is, Butters from South Park. Well, he just shot Drexl a few times and took off with Bama’s suitcase.
Clarence returns to Bama, and he brings her some tasty burgers. Again, with the Pulp Fiction connections. Well, they make out. Inside Bama’s suitcase is quite a bit of cocaine.
Hey, there’s Clifford, Clarence’s dad. He’s played by Dennis Hopper. Clarence and Bama meet up with Cliff at his trailer. Cliff is an officer I think. He seems disappointed in his son getting married. Clarence sends Bama off to get some beer so he can talk to daddy. Cliff is telling his boy how he’s too much like his mother, and he needs to slow it down some. Clarence tells him that he is in some trouble. He wants Cliff to find out info about this killing and whatnot.
There’s fucking Rapaport, and there’s Berta from 2 and a Half Men. He is at a place for a movie audition, and he is shitty. His name is Dick Ritchie.
Back to Cliff, he informs his son that the officers suspect the murder to be drug-related. Cliff seems to be cool with it because Drexl was a scumbag. Clarence and Bama are on their way to Dick’s. Bama just practically made out with Cliff. I love the purple car by the way. I really don’t like the music in this, and I wish it was better. What in the fuck is Bama wearing? She’s a treat. Dick has not gotten any of Clarence’s letters, these are important. On the plus side, Chantilly Lace was playing. Oh, and Clarence and Bama are screwing in a phone booth.
Back to Clifford, as he gets home, and he has a gun instantly point at him. There’s Vincenzo Coccotti, Christopher Walken, and he informs Clifford that his boy has stolen something from him. This scene….so good. Vincenzo is a big wig gangster that you don’t want to fuck with. Cliff pretends that he hasn’t seen Clarence, so punch to the nose for his lies. So, Drexl works for Vincenzo, and this is a problem. Stupid ass Clarence left his driver’s license in Drexl’s dead hand. Vincenzo asks where they are going. Cliff explains the situation, and how he just saw Clarence, how he loaned him some money and he has no idea where they are going. There’s James Gandolfini. Well, Vincenzo doesn’t like that so he cuts Cliff’s hand. Vincenzo goes on about how he’s Sicilian, and how guys have 17 tells when they are lying, girls, have 20. So Cliff decides that he wants a smoke, and he gets really serious. Cliff goes on about how Vincenzo is Sicilian, and he talks about their history, and how they were spawned by “niggers”, and Cliff is just trying to get under his skin. Basically about how black guys were nailing the Sicilian women and changed the typical blonde hair and blue eyes to black hair and brown eyes. Vincenzo is laughing. He calls Vincenzo part eggplant, so Vincenzo calls him a cantaloupe. Vincenzo gives Cliff a kiss, and he’s still laughing. He then proceeds to put a few bullets in Cliff’s bubblegoose. Favorite scene, right there.
Now we hear Aerosmith’s “Other Side” and Clarence and Bama show up at Dick’s. We finally meet stoner Floyd, played by Brad Pitt. Dick says that the role that he was auditioning for is to be part of the new TJ Hooker. Clarence shows Dick the vast amount of cocaine that he has in the suitcase. Clarence expected Dick to have some connection to sell all of that cocaine. Clarence wants 200 grand for 500 grand worth of cocaine. Dick says that he knows one guy who could potentially help. He’s an assistant to Lee Donowitz. The assistant’s name is Elliot Blitzer (Bronson Pinchot).
So they meet up with Elliot and they eat animal crackers. Elliot wants to know how it was obtained. They get on a roller coaster to talk. Clarence says that he had a connection with a cop who got it from evidence. Elliot does not like roller coasters, come to find out. Elliot is concerned about this whole ordeal. Elliot ends up calling Lee so Clarence could talk to him. Lee is pissed. Lee is a pretty funny, angry guy. Lee wants to talk to Elliot. He asks “Who is Dick” and Elliot thinks he tells him to suck a dick. Classic. Lee wants to meet with these guys.
Virgil (Gandolfini) finds Floyd and just walks in. Floyd is just fucked up. Too funny. Floyd tells Virgil where Clarence is staying. Floyd asks him to sit and watch TV with him. Virgil refuses. That’s a bummer dude.
So Clarence drops Bama off at the motel, and there’s Virgil waiting in the room. She offers him a cigarette. SO Virgil asks about the cocaine, and Bama plays stupid. She says that her husband plays football and is at practice. So Virgil gets up and asks for Bama’s hand. He lifts up her sunglasses, checks out her eyes. You can faintly hear “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and he asks her to spin around for him. She spins and he punches her in the face. She says fuck you and gets knocked down again after a gut punch. Clarence is getting some burgers. Virgil is fucking beating the hell out of Bama. So he asks where his cocaine is, and she ain’t talking. She flips him off, and he just keeps pummeling her. He asks her if she put it under the bed. She finds a pocket knife. He turns his back to her and gets the bag, and it has the cocaine. She has a corkscrew, he has a gun. Fair match. So he challenges her to one free shot, so she stabs his foot and bashes some statue over him. So he is now throwing her around the place. She starts laughing at him and tells him that he looks ridiculous, she gets time, blinds him, bashes him over the head with the top of the toilet tank, uses some hair spray and a lighter, then shoots him. This all just happened. Clarence shows up and he drags her and they bail with the cocaine. She is a fucking mess.
Elliot is out driving like a jackass, so a cop pursues him, and we see some girls head comes up. Ahhhh, road head. He has a bag of cocaine, and she won’t hide it for him. She smashes the bag in his face as the officer is a few feet away. So Elliot is getting talked to/yelled at by Cody (Tom Sizemore) and Nicky (Chris Penn). What a fucking treat that is. They go and talk to there boss, and we get some very traditional Tarantino style dialogue, no complaints. So they are gonna try to find out the source of the drugs pretty much. There’s a lot of people looking for Clarence and Bama.
Speaking of those 2, they are trying to figure out where they are going to move to. She wants to go to Cancun. He just wants to see TV in a different country. Dick gets a call, he got the part. Floyd asks them to buy some beer and cleaning products.
Vincenzo’s crew is getting locked and loaded with a crazy amount of weaponry and ammo that would make Rick Grimes jealous.
The cops have Elliot with a recorder in his pants. They are making Elliot try to get Lee to admit on tape that he is buying the cocaine. Clarence, Bama, and Dick are meeting Lee, and Clarence has a gun, and Dick ain’t happy. There’s Elliot there for the meeting as well. They are in the elevator. Clarence stops the elevator and puts a gun to Elliot’s head. The cops are cracking up at this shit. Clarence is afraid that this is a setup. Sizemore and Penn are fucking cracking me up. Clarence apologizes, he just wanted to be sure.
Floyd is smoking from a honey bear. He is visited by Vincenzo’s crew, and we have Soundgarden playing. These guys are asking Floy’d stoned ass. Hahaha. They are trying to get directions, with delightful results. Lee’s bodyguards are packing and frisking everyone. Elliot introduces the group to Lee. Lee has no interest in hearing from the bodyguards, but after badgering him, he informs Lee that Clarence has a gun, but Lee is totally relaxed. Now there’s some film talk, props to Apocalypse Now, Mad Max, The Good the Bad and The Ugly, and The Deer Hunter. I fucking LOVE the Deer Hunter.
Now Vincenzo’s crew has shown up and Lee has asked to see the stuff. The cops are pleased and ready to go. Lee says the offer is too good to be true. Lee pulls Clarence aside to be convinced. The cops can’t hear what is happening. Clarence is explaining that he doesn’t have time to sell all of it to make maximum profit. Lee loves the explanation and he is sold on Clarence bullshitting the cop friend. Elliot is cracking up suddenly. So Lee gives the money to Bama and Clarence takes a piss while singing Heartbreak Hotel.
The cops bust in and there’s a showdown with the cops and the bodyguards, and Lee and Dick want things to be chill. Here comes Vincenzo’s crew and now they enter. Well, ain’t that some shit. Lots of guns, Dick, Bama, and Lee are all kinda in the middle. Bama has been writing a letter during the this, on a napkin. There’s like 6 cops, 2 bodyguards, and 4 of Vincenzo’s crew. Elliot asks the officer if he can leave. Lee puts it together and flips out on Elliot. Hahaha, great. Lee gets shot, the bodyguards open fire, so the cops are firing, as are Vincenzo’s crew. Elliot and Lee are dead and out comes Clarence with his one gun. One bodyguard is down, maybe both. Vincenzo’s crew is holding up and Dick makes his escape. Clarence has been shot. There’s one of Vincenzo’s guys left, and he shoots the black cop. Chris Penn is left standing. Bama is with poor Clarence who ain’t moving. Penn kills the bodyguard, Bama gets pissed, shoots and kills Penn. It’s a fucking massacre.
Bama is just crying, and finally, Clarence starts moving. He’s alive. She grabs the money. One of Vincenzo’s guys has a hostage so everybody is focusing on him while Bama and Clarence slowly escape, the cops are focused on the chaos. She gets him in the car and drives off. She is close to the Mexican border. She does a voice-over, and we see that they eventually have a little boy. They are all happy on the beach. They named their son Elvis. Of course. And Christian Slater is wearing a fucking eye patch.
End film
TLDR
What Did We Learn From This Film?
Tarantino likes ridiculous standoffs at the end of his films, and they are enjoyable. Likes to have related characters in his film universe. We learned that if you get a really nice prostitute, marry her, go kill her pimp, steal all of his blow, and the only ramifications is the death of your father and get beat up slightly, Seems like a solid life plan. We also learned not to call a Sicilian a “nigger” because that will upset him, and he will call you a “cantaloupe”, and kiss you, and kill you. We learned to listen to that voice in our head, especially if he’s Elvis, because Elvis will lead you the right way 90% of the time, every time. We learned that if you are getting road head, don’t also expect your girl to hide your drugs for you after getting pulled over. We learned that watching kung fu movies will get you chicks.
How does this film correlate with Dirty Dancing?
This was a love that was never supposed to happen. Whether staff and members were to mingle, or whether a prostitute and her man are to get married. We also got two couples who on the surface, appeared to in no way cause any harm. Abortions, dead pimps, wet white shirts, dead dads, mad dads, and so on, can all result from a relationship that was never meant to be. And if you insist on keeping this love alive, there are only 2 end game results: a bunch of dead cops, film guys, and gangsters, OR everybody starts dancing in unison and everybody is creeped out. Yeah, I would prefer the former over the latter.
Rating: 8.0 – I want to give it a higher rating, but the 2 leads were there and fine for what they were, but never knocked me out. The strength was in the ensemble cast and the storyline. Another thing that knocks this down slightly is the music. I really found the music to detract from this, unlike in Dirty Dancing that helped enhance it.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Morgan Creek Entertainment
- Davis-Films
- August Entertainment
- Miramax (uncredited)
- Sterling MacFadden
- True Romance Productions (uncredited)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.