Pulp Fiction

Photo credit: TV Tropes

It is extremely hard for me to describe Pulp Fiction in an eloquent manner. Best leave it to the critics to do so.

"Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s." - Rotten Tomatoes

"The new King Kong of crime movies...Ferocious fun without a trace of caution, complacency or political correctness to inhibits its 154 deliciously lurid minutes." - Rolling Stone

Quentin Tarantino did a spectacular job with intertwining the three different stories in this film all while telling them in a non-linear fashion. Not many films can successfully pull off either of these tactics, let alone both. The film is a dark comedy that follows the stories of a pair of small-time robbers, a couple of Los Angeles mobsters, and a boxer with unpaid debt. There is a major focus on the dialogue to establish the personalities of the characters and is often laced with profanity. Actually, that is a slight understatement: there is an obscene amount of profanity in this movie. It is also a very violent movie and involves a lot of drugs as well as sexual encounters. Needless to say, this is not a movie for children.

Pulp Fiction features a cast full of big-name actors, though some were not as prominent back then. For example, John Travolta, who played Vincent Vega, one of the hit men, revived his declining career. The film also helped Uma Thurman (Mia Wallace, the mob boss’ wife) establish her career in the movie business. Other famous actors in the movie were Samuel L. Jackson(Jules Winnfield, the other hit man), Bruce Willis (Butch Coolidge, the boxer who owes the mob boss money), and Christopher Walken, who made a short appearance at the beginning of the movie.

Although most of the characters were interesting and had memorable dialogue, one of my favorite characters would probably be Fabienne, Butch’s girlfriend. She may not have been a main character, but she was a perfect foil to her boyfriend and most of the other characters, for that matter. She came off as innocent with her big doe eyes and delicate features, as well as with her accent highlighted by her silly chattering.  It was a nice contrast to the roughness of the rest of the movie.