Reservoir Dogs wunderkind Quentin Tarantino loves movies, even those of commercial cinema doyen Tony Scott. So finally seeing his first-penned script marshalled to the screen by Mr. Top Gun is maybe not quite the culture shock it first appears. In it, loner Detroit comic-bookstore clerk Clarence (Christian Slater) communes with the ghost of Elvis (Val Kilmer), and senses a soul-mate in Patricia Arquette's nascent hooker, Alabama. Offing Clarence's new wife's pimp, the lovers and a cocaine-stuffed suitcase take to the road in a purple Cadillac, figuring where better to offload the stuff than the La-La Land of Hollywood.

Even if you fail to spark off the (not overly original) plot, True Romance offers spadefuls of opportunity to play spot-the-homage. The death of the pimp Drexl (Gary Oldman, grotesque dreadlocked white man) is Scorsese's masterpiece Taxi Driver; lovers-on-the-run is a B-movie staple, here essentially a pulp reading of the brilliant Sheen/Spacek hook-up in Terence Malick's 1974 Badlands; Clarence and Alabama are chop-socky aficionados (they meet at a martial arts triple-bill); and references to Hong Kong action-miester John Woo abound, not least the outlandishly violent, utterly absurd finale, with two factions of heavily armed bad guys, and cops, facing each other down across a hotel room snowing feathers and coke. (One of Woo's singular A Better Tomorrow flicks plays elsewhere on a TV).

More mainstream than Dogs, and as befits the flavour of the moment, Tarantino's script attracts an formidable cast, with Slater's congenial loser maintaining a certain unpredictable psychopathy, while Arquette (last seen this good in Sean Penn's undervalued The Indian Runner) finally endorses her escape from sequel-hell and is gifted one particular episode of shocking violence in which to shine.

Dennis Hopper cameos (against type) as Slater's ex-cop father, sharing a lengthy, startling scene of verbal and physical brutality with Christopher Walken's malevolent gangster, Coccotti. Brad Pitt is a spaced-out hippy room-mate; Dog Chris Penn now a mouthy cop; and Bronson Pinchot is especially effective as nervy gopher for Saul Rubinek's splendidly greasy, coked-up movie producer.

This is comedy-thriller, much suited to Scott's workman talents, and as such lacks Reservoir Dogs' narrative elegance and hammering drive. Given a script with wheels (the appallingly cruel, foul-mouthed The Last Boy Scout) Scott can steer a more than effective race, and True Romance flashes with vigour, smart Hans Zimmer score, and enough squalid wit to power a fistful of genuine laughs. There is a spiky, fierce edge at work here, enough for a dozen high-concept Fugitive's or Falling Down's. It's a mass-market, pop-cultured rewrite of Reservoir Dogs, and maybe warns us that Tarantino has be careful to avoid simply rewiring, reselling Hollywood's past if he wants to stay the distance, but for now True Romance is another impressive feather in an already bulging cap.