Tarantino made a film that changed Independent Films and that film is...
Pulp Fiction is a film with three different stories that happen to be connected, which is one of the many reasons why I love the film. The main characters of the film are the two Hitman Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L Jackson); A Mob Boss named Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames); The Mob Bosses Wife Mia (Umma Thruman); A love couple of robbers (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer); and a Boxer named Butch (Bruce Willis). The film also pays homage to movies in general. Since this film has three different stories including a Prologue and Epilogue, I'm going to rate each story individually.
PROLOGUE
The film opens in a Diner with two lovers sitting down drinking Coffee and discussing about robbing other places instead of Liquor stores, to then suddenly coming up with the idea of robbing the diner. Just when they pull out their guns, the frame freezes, the kickass song "Misirlou" plays and the opening credits role. The acting from Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer are very convincing and each of them have their own type of character. Roth is cool and laid back, while Plummer is crazy and eager to pull off another robbery. The couple also are a reference to the bank robbing couple "Bonnie and Clyde". The thing I loved about the Prologue is the dialogue because most of their conversation revolves around why robbing liquor stores are dangerous and how easy it is to rob a restaurant. In my opinion this is one of the greatest openings to a movie that I've ever seen because we get an idea what the style of the films going to be like and even though we spent little time with these two characters, we already find them likable, despite being robbers.
Rating for the Prologue 5/5
Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife
A Hitman named Vincent Vega is asked by his boss to take his wife Mia out to dinner while he’s out of town, so she won’t get lonesome. Vincent agrees to his request and takes her out to eat. While he’s with her, he starts having feelings for her, but he knows if he touches her he will get whacked because while he was doing a job with another Hitman named Jules, he was told that the boss threw a guy out the window for massaging her feet. This story stars John Travolta, Umma Thruman and Samuel L Jackson. The supporting cast in this story is Ving Rhames, Bruce Willis, Eric Stoltz as the drug dealer Lance (Who kind of looks like the Jesus of drugs), and Rosanna Arquette as Lance's wife Jody (Aka "the one with all the S--t on her face").
The writing in the story is excellent because it’s not the story that pulled me in, it was once again the dialogue, most of the dialogue actually feels like a normal conversation you have when you talk to people. My favorite scenes with dialogue in this segment have to be The Bar scene when The Mob Boss bribes the Boxer to throw a fight and the scenes with the two Hitman as they talk about Europe and foot Massages. Another thing that brought up the greatness of the story is the choice of music; the film has no musical score, so just like “American Graffiti” and “Reservoir Dogs” they use original songs. The music fits in with the story perfectly and adds to the atmosphere of the scenes, especially in scenes like The Bar scene and the 50’s themed restaurant “Jack Rabbits Slims”. There are also times when the characters would dance to the music like the famous twist contest scene at “Jack Rabbit Slims” and the scene when Mia dances to the song “Girl You’ll be a Woman Soon” in the living room. I also find the cinematography in this story one of the many reasons that pulled me into this story. I think the best directed scenes are when the Hitman are walking down the hallway talking about foot massages; Vincent driving his Malibu car to Mia’s House (Excellent shadowing and edits by the way); and the Needle scene and no matter how many times I see that scene I still find it to be “F--kin Trippy”.
As for the Movie references in this story, there’s tons of them, most of them are seen in “The Jack Rabbits Slims” restaurant scene, but there are lots of others as well. A couple of examples are in the scene when the Hitman gets the mysterious case, Jules eats the victims food before he kills them. That’s a reference to “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” when we first meet Angel Eyes. Also in that scene, the Mysterious case they’re after (Which by the way no film critic or anybody who’s seen the film knows what’s in it) is a reference to the Suit Case in “Kiss Me Deadly”. Even the scene when they dance at the twist contest is a reference to movies, not just because it’s John Travolta dancing as a reference to “Saturday Night Fever” and” Grease”, but just look at how they dance. Mia is dancing like Duchess from Disney’s "The Artistocats” and they even do a bit of the Batutsi dance from the campy 60’s TV series "Batman" starring Adam West.
While I’m on the movie reference topic, let me point out that the film does connect to Quentin Tarantino’s first film “Reservoir Dogs”. As a matter a fact, most of Quentin Tarantino’s films connects with his previous films, which is one of the many reasons why I love Tarantino’s films. Vincent Vega is related to Vic Vega aka Mr. Blonde (One of my all time favorite Movie Villains), how is that possible? Their first names are similar, they have the same last names, they both look cool and Quentin Tarantino was recently going to make a film called “The Vega Brothers”. Another connection to “Reservoir Dogs” is in“Reservoir Dogs” Steve Buscemi makes a speech on why he doesn’t like tipping and how society screws waiters and waitresses, in the end of “Reservoir Dogs” we don’t know what happened to him (But they say if you turn the sound up you can hear him say “I’ve been shot”). In this film he plays a Buddy Holly waiter and is acting out of character as if he is thinking“I’m screwed big time.” I also heard that the reason why the cops aren't around in this film is because they're out trying to stop the heist in "Reservoir Dogs".
Rating 5/5
THE GOLD WATCH
Aging boxer Butch Coolidge is paid to throw a fight by Mob Boss Marcellus Wallace. Instead of throwing the fight, Butch accidentally kills the other Boxer during the fight (Off screen) and now he’s being hunted down by the mob to be whacked. Butch has everything planned out, however, his wife forgot to bring his watch which is a family heirloom that has been passed down by his family war veterans including his father. Butch now has to get it back, even if it means risking his life. This story stars Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames. The supporting cast members in the story are John Travolta, Angela Jones as Taxi Driver Esmeralda, Peter Greene as Zed the Hillbilly, Maria de Mederios as Butch’s girlfriend Fabienne, and Christopher Walken as Captain Koons, the guy who gave Butch the watch.
Another well written story, in fact, this one’s the most action packed one out of all the three stories and it seems fitting since it stars Bruce Willis. The dialogue just like in the first story is cleverly written. Just like my favorite Movie “The Godfather”, some of the violence is in the dialogue, mostly in the scenes with Ving Rhames as he plans to take out people. I think the best scene with dialogue out of everything in the whole story is when Christopher Walken tells young Butch about the watch. Why, well lets just say that it starts out serious, but then has a sick twist at the end. The music still fits in with the films atmosphere perfectly. A few examples of the music fitting in the film is in the scene when Butch is driving, singing along to the song “Flowers On The Wall”, he bumps into someone he wasn’t expecting to meet as the lyric in the song says” It’s good to see you”. Another example where the music blends in with a scene is the scene where the song “Comanche” plays when one of our main characters is being raped, which builds-up the suspense of the situation. Originally Quentin was going to use the song “My Sharona” and personally I think it would be a better choice, despite how well the song that he chose fits. As a matter a fact on YouTube, there’s a video of the scene with “My Sharona” playing in the background. It’s something that somebody made, but trust me it actually feels like the real deal. The cinematography is still great only this time we get a few surprises. Like in the scene when we follow Butch sneak into his apartment (Which the shot is similar to when we follow Mr. Blonde to his trunk in“Reservoir Dogs”), or the scene when Bruce Willis kills one of the main characters of the movie. One of the scenes that amazed me is when Butch is getting ready to kill someone, which looks like it’s going to be a violent scene, but when he does kill it’s not so violent, kind of like another scene in the movie but the intensity is still there like the shower scene in "Psycho" or the chainsaw scene in "Scarface" for example.
Just like the first story, there’s tons of Movie references in this story. The Bruce Willis character Butch for example, is a Boxer and some of his scenes are references to Boxing movies such as “Raging Bull” and “Rocky”. The shoot-out on the street scene and the scene when Butch runs over somebody is a reference to a similar scene in “The Godfather Part 2”. In the Gold Watch speech with Christopher Walken, there are references to War films in the speech, in fact Christopher Walken coming back home from the Vietnam war is obviously a reference to a movie he starred in and won an Oscar called "The Deer Hunter". The choice of weapons Butch chooses are also Movie references as well. The biggest movie homage in the whole film that every critic knows are the two Hillbillies’ who rape one of the main characters pays homage to the ones in “Deliverance”. Now I’m gonna be honest with the Hillbillies in this movie, I do like that they're movie references, but they seemed out of place, like almost as if they were in the wrong movie. It's not that I didn’t enjoy the scene because it is freaking awesome, but did they have to have a sex slave called “The Gimp”, that’s what really felt out of place, I just thought the idea was a little too extreme. This story, however, is still just as epic as the first one.
Rating 5/5
THE BONNIE SITUATION
We're back at the scene when Jules and Vincent are getting the mysterious case, while Jules is reciting Ezekiel 25:17 before whacking one of the kids. Right after the job, one of the kids that was hiding in the bathroom, runs out and shoots them, but they didn’t get hit. Jules believes it’s a miracle from God, but Vincent denies it. As they’re driving off, Vincent accidentally shoots an inside man for the job named Marvin and with no place to go hide the bloody car and the body, they go to Jule’s friend’s house Jimmy. However, Jimmy wants them out because his wife is coming home in an hour and a half and if she sees it, he’ll get divorced. So they get help from from one Marsellus' men named Winston the Wolf. The story stars Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta. The supporting characters are Phil Lamar as Marvin, Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolf, Julia Sweeney as Winston’s girlfriend Raquel, and director of the film Quentin Tarantino as Jimmy.
This story is a little bit different than the other stories and is a bit unusual and interesting too. Usually when we see gangster do a job, we usually don’t follow them after that, we cut to the to another scene. In this one, we’re with them right after the job. What I also found interesting is I actually felt like I was with them. I think the reason why is the acting, which I didn’t mention yet in the review. The acting throughout the whole film is actually realistic. The way they talk and act literally make them seem like everyday people, even when they're over the top, they’re still convincing. I’m not saying other films don’t do that, there’s a lot of them, but usually when I see films, when I see people acting I feel for the characters, but I know they’re acting, this one on the other hand made me forget they’re acting even though I know the actors from their previous and later films.
The dialogue is just as cleverly written as the other two, but I found most of it funny, especially when we constantly see the Hitman panic and argue throughout the whole story. The cinematography wasn't the same as the other two, but I think that’s because we the audience are supposed to feel like we’re with them. There’s also not much movie or TV references in this story, except in the dialogue. There’s also no music, but to be honest, I’m glad they didn’t put music in this story because I think it ruin the realism and feel to the story. Different, but just as great as the other stories.
Rating 5/5
THE EPILOGUE
We’re back at the Diner, only this time we’re with the Hitman, and that’s all I’m going say, but I will this say this, ONE OF THE BEST ENDINGS EVER! "Pulp Fiction" is indeed one of the greatest films that I have ever seen and it is in fact a must watch!
My Rating for the whole film 5/5
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