Plot
Comic book store clerk and film buff Clarence Worley watches a Sonny Chiba triple feature at a Detroit movie theater for his birthday. There he meets Alabama Whitman, seemingly by chance. They go to a diner for pie and flirt before heading to Clarence's apartment. After having sex, she confesses that she is a call girl hired by Clarence's boss as a birthday present. But, she has fallen in love with Clarence and he with her.
The next day, they marry. Alabama's pimp, Drexl Spivey, makes Clarence uneasy. An apparition of his idol, Elvis Presley, tells him that killing Drexl, who is also a drug dealer, will make the world a better place. Clarence tells Drexl that he has married Alabama and she has no additional business with him. Drexl and Clarence fight, Clarence draws a gun and kills Drexl. He grabs a bag that he assumes belongs to Alabama. When he tells Alabama he killed Drexl, she sobs and finds this "so romantic."
Opening the suitcase, the two find it is full of cocaine, which was stolen by Drexl. Clarence and Alabama decide to leave for California immediately. First they pay a visit to Clarence's estranged father, Clifford Worley, a former cop. Clifford tells Clarence that the police assume Drexl's murder is a drug-related killing.
In Los Angeles, the young couple plan to meet Clarence's old friend, Dick Ritchie, an aspiring actor. Back in Detroit, Clifford is confronted in his home by gangster Vincenzo Coccotti, who wants the drugs taken from Drexl, his underling. Clifford refuses to reveal where his son has gone. Accepting that he is going to die anyway, he insults Coccotti, who shoots Clifford and then finds a note on the fridge giving Clarence's address in L.A.
Clarence plans to use Ritchie's contacts with an actor named Elliot to sell the drugs to a film producer, Lee Donowitz. Elliot, who has some of the cocaine, is stopped while speeding and is arrested for drug possession. Believing Clarence's story of getting the drugs from a dirty cop, he informs on Donowitz.
Alabama is found alone in the motel room and interrogated by Coccotti's henchman, Virgil (Gandolfini). In the subsequent fight, she kills him. She and Clarence talk of moving to Cancún with the money from the drug deal. Knowing that Elliot's cocaine was uncut, and with Elliot "confessing" in order to avoid prison, detectives Nicholson and Dimes conclude that a sizable drug deal is about to go down. Promising him that he can avoid prison in return for cooperation, the two detectives have Elliot wear a wire. Coccotti's men learn where the deal is going down from Ritchie's roommate, Floyd (Pitt), and they all converge on Donowitz's suite at the Ambassador Hotel.
Clarence makes a good impression on Donowitz. They are then ambushed by both the cops and gangsters who break in at almost the same time. Donowitz realizes that Elliot is an informant and throws a pot of coffee on him, Nicholson shoots Donowitz, and a shootout begins. Ritchie abandons the drugs and flees. Clarence is shot as he exits the bathroom. Afterward, Dimes finds one of the bodyguards mortally wounded, and kills him for shooting Nicholson. Alabama then shoots Dimes.
As Alabama cries over Clarence, it is revealed that the gunshot had only grazed his face and narrowly missed his eye. He and Alabama escape with Donowitz's money as more police set a perimeter around the hotel. They are shown on a beach in Cancún, with a son they have named Elvis.
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