Pulp Fiction

People always acted shocked when they found out I’d never seen Pulp Fiction. Blasphemy! I just never got around to watching the acclaimed cult classic that put Quentin Tarantino and Miramax on the map. In a sense, it’s not really an ‘indie’ film… I mean, it cost QT $8.5 mil, and features the A-List talents of John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Uma Thurman and Bruce Willis! Yeah, maybe they weren’t as well-known at the time, but Tarantino definitely dropped a fortune to have their public appeal. No doubt, this was a good choice…

Travolta and Jackson make for an irresistably dynamic duo as the right-hand men of a big crime boss. Drugs and debt run their business, and business is good. Tarantino regularly takes the opportunity to shock the viewer with the violent nature of their jobs, but these bloody sequences are fairly iconic of his work. The most memorable scene (perhaps) was Thurman’s mistake of snorting a line of HEROIN instead of cocaine. Silly Uma. The drug wreaks havoc on her body, and Travolta eventually must plunge a shot of adrenaline, through the breastplate, into her heart… You really can’t help but flinch. But that’s the point!

I think it’s obvious why this movie is so popular, but I never would’ve known without finally seeing it. It’s fast paced. Exciting. And takes a new approach to the usual way of most films. The timing, for example, is unusual… And it takes you a while to see which part connects to what other part, building up an intense curiousity and attentiveness to detail. Tarantino also leaves some key things to the imagination. Like the briefcase that Travolta & Jackson must retrieve at the beginning. It is opened on a couple different occassions, but never a shot in which you can see what it contains. (Gold, I think?)

All in all, I think it’s a great movie that seems to have reached a pretty wide range of audiences. The chemistry between the actors is undeniable, and with Tarantino’s unique creative spark, the result is a classic and impressive film. (And that’s a fact!)

Tags: ali mckenna, bruce willis, harvey keitel, john travolta, miramax, pulp fiction, quentin tarantino, samuel jackson, uma thurman

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 7:48 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.