A Hitman duo, Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega set out to retrieve a stolen suitcase on the orders of mob boss Marsellus Wallace. Wallace meanwhile has also asked Vincent to take out his wife Mia when he's out of town on business. Butch, an ageing boxer who Wallace pays to throw a fight gives in to pride, winning the bout, and planning to run away with his girlfriend Fabienne. Each of these protagonists lives, although seemingly unconnected become intertwined and lead to a series of events that are paradoxically strange, amusing, dark and brutal.
Leading on from the astonishing critical and commercial success of his debut feature as both director and writer with 1992's Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino would follow this up with his second feature, Pulp Fiction. A phenomenal homage to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels of the mid-20th century. The movie revolves around the exploits of an array of morally dubious or plain immoral characters who in one way or another inhabit the Los Angeles underworld. With a story that Tarantino conceived with fellow filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Roger Avary, he delivered a movie that self referential in style employs the same non-linear storytelling method that he did so with his first film. Only more so.
With his being afforded the convenience of a larger budget of $8.5 million as opposed to the paltry $3 million one he was forced to work with on Reservoir Dogs. This allowed him the ability to weave a broader tapestry as he tells three interconnecting tales. With Hitmen Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) setting out to pick up a stolen briefcase from some Yuppie criminals, who evidently have gotten themselves way over their head. While Vincent has a night out to look foward to with Mia (Uma Thurman), the wife of their boss, the crime lord Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Just as means to show her a good time and good company while her hubby is out of town. Then there's the story of Butch, a Boxer who reneges on a deal with Wallace to take a dive in a fight, and finds himself having to go on the run with his girlfriend.
Tarantino creates a world of his own, which seems to leaped straight from the pages of the Pulp magazines and novels that his movie is a celebration of. Encompassed by a wealth of colourful wayward characters who while defying belief prove to be extraordinarily believable. It's further enhanced by crisp, endlessly quotable dialogue. Just before paying their youthful hit's a visit, Jules and Vincent debate the distinction between giving a woman a foot massage and giving her oral pleasure. Petty thieves Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) wax lyrical on how robbing diners would be more financially lucrative as opposed to holding up liquor stores. And Butch recalls in a dream when as a small boy Captain Koons (Christopher Walken), a solider who served with his father in Vietnam gave him his father's coveted gold watch. Imparting in a monologue what his old man had to go through so that it could be brought to him. As he demonstrated with Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino's ear for smart, razor-sharp dialogue is practically unparalleled.
As with his debut movie, Pulp Fiction is unflinching as it is visceral in it's depiction of violence. He had a healthy disregard for the lives of some of his protagonists and supporting players. Not least when one suffers the misfortune of being shot in the face (allegedly by accident) by Vincent, leading he and Jules to hole up in the home of the latter's former partner Jimmy (Tarantino in a extended cameo), where they are eventually forced to await the arrival of "Cleaner", Winston "The Wolf" Wolfe (Harvey Keitel). A resourceful, fast thinking character who proves to be the answer to the professional killers prayers. In the "I've had a hell of a day stakes", it's only outdone by Butch's segment, that proves to be genuinely bizarre. Thanks in no short measure due to he and Marcellus Wallace's surprise encounter with a perverse pawnshop owner, and his red neck security guard partner in crime Zed.
Replete as was previously referenced to the self-referential nature of Tarantino's script, pop culture reference's abound. And none more so than when Vincent and Mia on their night out together visit a 50's themed restaurant. Where if they are not being served by a waiter dressed as Buddy Holly (played by Steve Buscemi in a brief cameo), other members of staff pretending to be Ed Sullivan and Marilyn Monroe make an appearance.
What works further in it's favour is the contrast between both Vincent and Jules, who are if nothing a fantastic foil to one another. Vincent is the more impulsive, and hot-headed one of the pair who it wouldn't be uncharitable to say has something of an attitude problem. While Jules, who undoubtedly has a ruthless, violent streak is the more level headed and pragmatic of the two. Suffice to say this proved to mark a career renaissance for Travolta, who although he had a fleeting success with the 1990 comedy Look Who's Talking. It's Pulp Fiction that truly invigorated it.. Whilst also proving to be a career making one for Jackson, and no less at the age of 46.
The non-linear structure of the movie means that it pretty much ends where it begins. At the diner where the movie opens in a pre-credit prologue where we're introduced to both Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. Therefore more or less bookending the movie, But not before we've already learned of the fate of one of the major characters. So seamless is his style of storytelling, that it never once feels convoluted or as if the writer/director is overplaying his hand.
Pulp Fiction is nothing short of a work of at, although Reservoir Dogs still pips it slightly to the post as being Tarantino's cinematic magnum opus. It's a nevertheless an iconic masterpiece of the 20th Century, and one that helped reinvent the Hollywood crime movie genre. So much so that along with the works of Hitchcock, Spielberg or Kubrick. Any film class would be remiss in suggesting that this would be a go to movie to study as a technical masterclass in filmmaking and storytelling.
Leading on from the astonishing critical and commercial success of his debut feature as both director and writer with 1992's Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino would follow this up with his second feature, Pulp Fiction. A phenomenal homage to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels of the mid-20th century. The movie revolves around the exploits of an array of morally dubious or plain immoral characters who in one way or another inhabit the Los Angeles underworld. With a story that Tarantino conceived with fellow filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Roger Avary, he delivered a movie that self referential in style employs the same non-linear storytelling method that he did so with his first film. Only more so.
With his being afforded the convenience of a larger budget of $8.5 million as opposed to the paltry $3 million one he was forced to work with on Reservoir Dogs. This allowed him the ability to weave a broader tapestry as he tells three interconnecting tales. With Hitmen Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) setting out to pick up a stolen briefcase from some Yuppie criminals, who evidently have gotten themselves way over their head. While Vincent has a night out to look foward to with Mia (Uma Thurman), the wife of their boss, the crime lord Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Just as means to show her a good time and good company while her hubby is out of town. Then there's the story of Butch, a Boxer who reneges on a deal with Wallace to take a dive in a fight, and finds himself having to go on the run with his girlfriend.
Tarantino creates a world of his own, which seems to leaped straight from the pages of the Pulp magazines and novels that his movie is a celebration of. Encompassed by a wealth of colourful wayward characters who while defying belief prove to be extraordinarily believable. It's further enhanced by crisp, endlessly quotable dialogue. Just before paying their youthful hit's a visit, Jules and Vincent debate the distinction between giving a woman a foot massage and giving her oral pleasure. Petty thieves Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) wax lyrical on how robbing diners would be more financially lucrative as opposed to holding up liquor stores. And Butch recalls in a dream when as a small boy Captain Koons (Christopher Walken), a solider who served with his father in Vietnam gave him his father's coveted gold watch. Imparting in a monologue what his old man had to go through so that it could be brought to him. As he demonstrated with Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino's ear for smart, razor-sharp dialogue is practically unparalleled.
As with his debut movie, Pulp Fiction is unflinching as it is visceral in it's depiction of violence. He had a healthy disregard for the lives of some of his protagonists and supporting players. Not least when one suffers the misfortune of being shot in the face (allegedly by accident) by Vincent, leading he and Jules to hole up in the home of the latter's former partner Jimmy (Tarantino in a extended cameo), where they are eventually forced to await the arrival of "Cleaner", Winston "The Wolf" Wolfe (Harvey Keitel). A resourceful, fast thinking character who proves to be the answer to the professional killers prayers. In the "I've had a hell of a day stakes", it's only outdone by Butch's segment, that proves to be genuinely bizarre. Thanks in no short measure due to he and Marcellus Wallace's surprise encounter with a perverse pawnshop owner, and his red neck security guard partner in crime Zed.
Replete as was previously referenced to the self-referential nature of Tarantino's script, pop culture reference's abound. And none more so than when Vincent and Mia on their night out together visit a 50's themed restaurant. Where if they are not being served by a waiter dressed as Buddy Holly (played by Steve Buscemi in a brief cameo), other members of staff pretending to be Ed Sullivan and Marilyn Monroe make an appearance.
What works further in it's favour is the contrast between both Vincent and Jules, who are if nothing a fantastic foil to one another. Vincent is the more impulsive, and hot-headed one of the pair who it wouldn't be uncharitable to say has something of an attitude problem. While Jules, who undoubtedly has a ruthless, violent streak is the more level headed and pragmatic of the two. Suffice to say this proved to mark a career renaissance for Travolta, who although he had a fleeting success with the 1990 comedy Look Who's Talking. It's Pulp Fiction that truly invigorated it.. Whilst also proving to be a career making one for Jackson, and no less at the age of 46.
The non-linear structure of the movie means that it pretty much ends where it begins. At the diner where the movie opens in a pre-credit prologue where we're introduced to both Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. Therefore more or less bookending the movie, But not before we've already learned of the fate of one of the major characters. So seamless is his style of storytelling, that it never once feels convoluted or as if the writer/director is overplaying his hand.
Pulp Fiction is nothing short of a work of at, although Reservoir Dogs still pips it slightly to the post as being Tarantino's cinematic magnum opus. It's a nevertheless an iconic masterpiece of the 20th Century, and one that helped reinvent the Hollywood crime movie genre. So much so that along with the works of Hitchcock, Spielberg or Kubrick. Any film class would be remiss in suggesting that this would be a go to movie to study as a technical masterclass in filmmaking and storytelling.
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