Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino’s very best film, Pulp Fiction details the exploits of several seedy characters over the course of one especially eventful day – with the movie following, among others, a pair of chatty hitmen (John Travolta’s Vincent Vega and Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules Winnfield), a rebellious boxer (Bruce Willis’ Butch Coolidge), and a mobster’s wife (Uma Thurman’s Mia Wallace). There’s little doubt that Pulp Fiction gets off to as strong and engrossing a start as one could possibly envision, as writer/director Tarantino delivers an extraordinarily entertaining pre-credits sequence revolving around two criminals (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) contemplating their next move – with the movie, past that point, segueing into a non-linear narrative that’s been packed with inventive and thoroughly spellbinding interludes. The seemingly complex plotting, which reveals itself to be fairly straightforward once the finale rolls around, is a springboard for Tarantino’s notoriously compelling dialogue and a series of thoroughly captivating performances, with, in terms of the latter, the filmmaker eliciting career-best work from virtually every single one of his actors (eg Travolta has never been more interesting and mesmerizing on screen, that’s for sure). And although the film runs a slightly overlong 153 minutes, Pulp Fiction generally boasts a consistent pace that’s buoyed by its proliferation of now-iconic images and sequences – although, by that same token, it is worth noting that the picture does contain a small handful of forgivable yet palpable missteps (eg Butch’s encounter with a morbidly-curious taxi driver, Angela Jones’ Esmarelda Villalobos, stands as an obvious low point within the proceedings). Such concerns are quickly and thoroughly cancelled out by a production that’s otherwise flawless in its execution, and it ultimately goes without saying that Pulp Fiction remains (and most likely will remain) the crowning achievement in Tarantino’s body of work.

**** out of ****