A crackling script, fast paced direction, fine performances from a great cast and a superb soundtrack make Pulp Fiction compulsive and essential viewing.
Writer and director Quentin Tarantino's hugely successful follow-up to 'Reservoir Dogs' melds three dime-store stories set in lowlife LA into one cohesive thriller. Butch (Bruce Willis) is an over-the-hill boxer paid to take a fall, who instead does a runner with mobster Merselius's money. Meanwhile, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are two hitmen who aren't having the easiest of mornings, and Pumpkin and Honey Bunny (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) are two would-be bank robbers who are planning a heist in a restaurant. Winner of the Golden Palm at Cannes and an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.
Quentin Tarantino's second film, Pulp Fiction takes the viewer on a cerebral, sensual and emotional rollercoaster ride and, as such, is not a film for the easily-confu... more >
Quentin Tarantino's second film, Pulp Fiction takes the viewer on a cerebral, sensual and emotional rollercoaster ride and, as such, is not a film for the easily-confused or faint-of-heart...but then, you probably knew that already.
Tarantino's style of filming pays direct tribute to the genres which he clearly adores, but is never overly-reverential. Then again, things move at such a fast pace that it doesn't have time to be. The curious non-chronological sequencing has the film opening and closing with the same attempted heist in a diner; in between we inevitably see plenty of blood and gore, but are also privy to some high drama, intrigue, duplicity, black comedy, sexual tension, moral dilemma and some of the most innovative and quotable dialogue in modern-day cinema, which at times makes even the inane seem interesting ('Le Big Mac' indeed).
A stellar cast turn in some fine performances. Samuel L. Jackson (in the role that made his name) and John Travolt a (getting a long-awaited lease of cinematic life) are the epitomy of gun-toting cool. Bruce Willis is appropriately bullish - or 'Butch', if you prefer - as a double-crossing boxer, Uma Thurman smoulders in a wig as gangster's moll Mia Wallace, while Harvey Keitel and Christopher Walken both come close to stealing the show in cameo roles. Walken's Vietnam vet is a far cry from his role in The Deer Hunter, treading the line between serious and comical quite brilliantly.
Tarantino's first film Reservoir Dogs introduced him as a bright new light in '90s cinema. Pulp Fiction cemented this reputation, and remains not just the best of his films thus far, but is quite possibly the best film of that decade. < less
