It’s a shame people aren’t asking the real questions anymore like this movie was. What are you doing to a man who massages your wife’s feet? Depends, maybe you’re throwing him off a building because of it or claiming that’s too extreme of a reaction. Pulp Fiction throws in these fun pointless conversations and later in the film philosophical conversations between two very centralized characters in the non-linear storyline, Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta).
Now that we’ve covered two of our characters in this movie that intertwines multiple stories, we can introduce three other cinema connoisseurs who appear on screen: Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman, and Bruce Willis. And yes, I did say appear on screen for Tarantino. Anyways, all three of these actors/actresses/filmmakers came out of their breakout roles/films already. For Bruce Willis this was Die Hard in 1988. For Uma this was the romantic drama Dangerous Liaisons also in 1988, and for Tarantino his independent breakout film which he crafted in 1992, Reservoir Dogs. To give a quick debrief on this star packed Tarantino classic, it’s about multiple sets of characters, one being Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega. Another being gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) and Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), and the last two being Butch Coolidge and Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros), and armed robbers “Pumpkin” (Tim Roth) and “Honey Bunney” (Amanda Plummer). Plus, their roles only appear once on screen in their own respective scenes, but Christopher Walken and Steve Buscemi both are casted in this classic. As my friend Jack said when I showed this movie to him a few weeks ago, “Damn bro they really got everyone in this movie.” Yes Jack, yes they do. These pairs of characters all struggle with different things. Bruce Willis plays a struggling boxer who’s working for Marsellus Wallace on the side but then screws Marsellus over and randomly stumbles across Marsellus while he’s out to get donuts. The interaction develops into a fight in the street and even more chaos ensues from there. Before we get to that section of the movie, we start with the two hitmen who bust into an apartment of three young men who also screwed over Marsellus Wallace. As Jules Winnfield always does when he kills people for Marsellus, he recites this one line in the bible, Ezekiel 25:17 to be exact. I’ll spare you the long but badass spiel that is dished out by Jules often throughout the film, but know that the interaction between these two characters is what makes this movie worth watching as well as the other wild crime situations. The two armed robbers who’s nicknames for each other only irritates me a little while watching (“Honey Bunney” and “Pumpkin”) appear once at the beginning of the film and once at the end of the film. But, at the end of the film the scene we started before is fully played out involving Jules and Vincent.
The Pros
The reverse chronology done by Quentin Tarantino through the diner scene is something I appreciate as just a cosmetic design to this film. Completely disregarding the complexity of the story line and the fact that non-linear storytelling is very hard to wrap your head around, the movie just literally entertains anyone who decides to hit the play button. Quentin Tarantino’s performance as Jimmy is stellar and also has become a meme from the amazing screenwriting. This movie could’ve stuck with all the fancy talk between Marsellus’ enemies and included one cool fighting scene and then ended, but it didn’t. It decided to take it somewhere that gets you nominated in seven categories of the Academy Awards and won Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
The Cons
One of the things that I personally could’ve done without would be the 20 minute long “wax museum with a pulse” dinner that Vincent takes Mia Wallace on. It’s just too long man. I also felt the movie could’ve been shorter in places. Sure, I’m no director or editor for films, but there were just some moments where scenes seemed redundant or just elongated. I believe that I speak from a perspective for a general viewer and that most viewers would appreciate more concise scenes.
Pulp Fiction is a film mandatory of more than one watch since it’s just way too confusing on the first watch as a “Gen Z ” kid and 16 year old. Although this movie definitely wouldn’t stand with all the derogatory writing throughout nowadays, I give it a pass since it was the 90s and the jokes were appropriate for the characters using them and effect of the film.
Pulp Fiction, not what you probably expected walking into this crime classic, but I can assure one thing- you’ll will be happy you gave it a watch. The Shobe Score is an 84.