The Greatest Movie Dialogue Ever, Maybe
By Jon Therkildsen
“TRUE ROMANCE (1993)”, has a dialogue between Clifford Worley (Dennis Hopper) and Vincenzo Coccotti (Christopher Walken), as written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. It is the best piece of dialogue ever written, before or since.
Acted and delivered flawlessly and brilliantly.
Enjoy:
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Do you know who I am, Mr. Worley?”
Clifford Worley: “I give up. Who are you?”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “I'm the Anti-Christ. You've got me in a vendetta kind of mood. You tell the angels in heaven you've never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. My name is Vincent Coccotti.
I work as counsel for Mr. Blue Lou Boyle, the man your son stole from. I hear you were once a cop, so I can assume you've heard of us before. Am I correct?”
Clifford Worley: “I've heard of Blue Lou Boyle.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “I'm glad. Hopefully that will clear up the "How full of shit am I?" question you've been asking yourself. We're gonna have a little Q&A and at the risk of sounding redundant, please make your answers genuine…
…You want a Chesterfield?”
Clifford Worley: “No.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “I have a son of my own. About your boy's age. I can imagine how painful this must be for you. But Clarence and that bitch-whore girlfriend of his brought this all on themselves. I implore you not to go down that road with them. You can always take comfort in the fact you never had a choice.”
Clifford Worley: “Look I'd like to help you if I could, but I...haven't seen Clarence.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “You see that?”
[Holding a clenched fist, then striking Clifford.]
Clifford Worley: “Gah! Fuck!”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “That smarts, doesn't it? Getting slammed in the nose. Fucks you all up. You get that pain shootin' through your brain, your eyes fill up with water. That ain't any kind of fun, but what I have to offer you, that's as good as it's gonna get. And it won't ever get that good again…
…We talked to your neighbors. They saw a Cadillac. Purple Cadillac. Clarence's purple Cadillac, parked in front of your trailer yesterday. Mr. Worley, you seen your son?”
Clifford Worley: “I seen him.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “I can't be sure of how much of what he told you, so in the chance you're in the dark about some of this, let me shed some light. That whore your boy hangs around with, her pimp is an associate of mine, and I don't just mean pimpin', in other affairs he works for me in a courier capacity. Well, apparently, that dirty little whore found out when we're gonna do some business,'cause your son, the cowboy, and his flame, came in the room blazing, and didn't stop 'till they were pretty sure everybody was dead.”
Clifford Worley: “What are you talkin' about?”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Talkin' about a massacre. They snatched my narcotics, hightailed it outta there. Woulda got away with it, but your son, fuckhead that he is, left his driver's license in the dead guy's hand.”
[laughing]
Clifford Worley: “You know, I don't believe you.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “That's of minor importance, what is of major fucking importance is that I believe you… Where'd they go?”
Clifford Worley: “On their honeymoon.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “I'm getting angry asking the same question a second time. Where did they go?”
Clifford Worley: “They didn't tell me. Now you just wait a minute and listen to me. I haven't seen Clarence in three years. He shows up yesterday with a young girl, sayin' that he got married. He ask uh for, uh, some quick cash to go on a honeymoon, he asked if he could borrow five hundred dollars. I felt like helping him so I wrote him out a check. We went to breakfast in the morning and that's the last I saw of him. So help me God. They never thought to tell me where they were goin'. And I never thought to ask.”
[Coccotti nods at a henchman, who cuts Clifford's hand and pours alcohol on the wound. Clifford screams in pain, gritting his teeth]
Vincenzo Coccotti: “You know, Sicilians are great liars. The best in the world. I'm Sicilian. My father was the world heavyweight champion of Sicilian liars. From growin' up with him I learned the pantomime. There are seventeen different things a guy can do when he lies to give himself away. A guy's got seventeen pantomimes. A woman's got twenty, a guy's got seventeen. But if you know 'em like you know your own face, they beat lie detectors all to hell. Now, what we got here is a little game of show and tell…
…You don't wanna show me nothin'. But you're tellin' me everything. I know you know where they are. So tell me, before I do some damage you won't walk away from.”
[Pause]
Clifford Worley: “Could I have … one of those Chesterfields now?”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Sure.”
[Passes one of the Chesterfields]
Clifford Worley: “You got a…”
[Puts the cigarette in his mouth]
Clifford Worley: “… match? Oh wait no no, don't bother. I got one. You're Sicilian, huh?”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Yeah, Sicilian.”
Clifford Worley: “You know, I read a lot. Especially about things in, uh, about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here's a fact, I don't know whether you know or not, Sicilians ... were spawned by niggers.”
[Coccotti raises his eyebrows in disbelief]
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Come again?”
[laughs]
Clifford Worley: “No, i-i-it's a fact. You see, uh, Sicilians have black blood pumpin' through their hearts. If you don't believe me, you can look it up…
…Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, you see, the Moors conquered Sicily. And the Moors are niggers.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Yes?”
Clifford Worley: “So you see, way back then, uh, Sicilians were like, uh, wops from Northern Italy. Ah, they all had blonde hair and blue eyes, but, uh, well, then the Moors moved in there, and uh, well, they changed the whole country…
…They did so much fucking with Sicilian women, huh? That they changed the whole bloodline forever. That's why blonde hair and blue eyes became black hair and dark skin…
…You know, it's absolutely amazing to me to think that to this day, hundreds of years later, that, uh, that Sicilians still carry that nigger gene…
… Now this…”
[Coccotti laughs]
Clifford Worley: “… No, I'm, no, I'm quoting history. It's written. It's a fact, it's written.”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “I love this guy”
[Coccotti stumbling on words through his lauggter]
Vincenzo Coccotti: “this guy.”
Clifford Worley: “Your ancestors are niggers! Uh-huh.”
[Coccotti is cracking up with laughter]
Clifford Worley: “Hey. Yeah. And, and your great-great-great-great grandmother fucked a nigger, ho, ho, yeah, and she had a half-nigger kid... now, if that's a fact, tell me, am I lying?…
…'Cause you,”
[Worley points at Coccotti]
Clifford Worley: “… you're part eggplant.”
[All laughing]
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Ohhh!”
Clifford Worley: “Huh?”
[Worley twisting his index finger in the air]
Clifford Worley: “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
Vincenzo Coccotti: “You're a cantaloupe.”
[All laughing]
Vincenzo Coccotti: “Ohhh! This guy, beautiful.”
[He kisses Worley on the cheeks, then whispers something to his henchman, stopping to turn around and chuckle at Worley. He continues, then turns around to reveal he was getting a gun from his henchman. He lifts it and shoot Worley in the head]
Vincenzo Coccotti: “I haven't killed anybody…”
[Shoots Worley's dead body]
Vincenzo Coccotti: “… since 1984.”
[Shoots the body twice more]