That was fuckin' trippy!!

I apologise for the language in the title of this post, but it was taken from one of my favourite Quentin Tarantino films, which is the subject of this entry on the ol blog.  So yes this is another blagged entry from the tennis/other stuff blog, and I thought it earned its place here, so without further ado, here's my review on Pulp Fiction...... 

The film as we all know it features a big star-strewn cast which is lead by John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Uma Thurman and Bruce Willis, and this film definitely acted as a springboard for all four of these actors careers, particularly Travolta and Jackson.  And we probably all know the plot, well those of us who have seen it, as it has a relatively complex plot, following the lives of two gangsters, a crime boss and his wife, and a boxer and his girlfriend, who in some way or another intertwine with one another at some point or another.

The main two stories of course features hitman Vincent (Travolta) who goes on a job with his partner Jules (Jackson) to retrieve a briefcase from some young kids who were stupid enough to rip off their boss Marcellus Wallace (played by Vingh Rhames).  In the ensuing scene after they have killed the guys, Vincent accidentally kills one of their associates, Marvin, by shooting him in the head while Jules is driving.  After that Jule's calls his local friend Jimmie for help (played by Tarantino himself) and Marcellus who sends one of his business associates Mr Wolf (Harvey Keitel), who "solves problems" and aids in cleaning up their mess for them.  The other story being Vincent who is asked by Marcellus to take out his wife Mia (Uma Thurman) one night on the town while he is away on business.  As the two of them have a good night out, and share a steak, burger, and take part in a twist contest, at a "wax museum with a pulse" 1950s style diner.  But when they go back to Mia's place, Mia accidentally overdoses on Vincent's heroin baggie, thinking it to be cocaine.  At this point Vincent in a panic takes the dying Mia over to his drug dealing buddie Lance (Eric Stoltz) from whom he bought heroin, which leads into the infamous "needle" scene where Vincent brings Mia round with an adrenaline shot.

The next big story is the "Golden Watch" with Bruce Willis as a boxer Butch Coolidge who is coming to the end of his career and is being forced to take a dive in his fight by Marcellus.  But Butch has other ideas and ends up winning the fight, killing his opponent in the process (unintentionally of course) and plans to flee with his girlfriend and the winnings he made from the bookies who placed bets on him.  But as Butch and his girlfriend, Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) plan their departure, Butch notices that Fabienne neglected to pick up his precious golden watch, which was given to him as a present from a soldier (Christopher Walken) who was entrusted the watch given to him by Butch's dad, who later died of dysentary (from concealing the watch in his ass!).  So as Butch goes back to his apartment to pick up the watch he proceeds to have the "weirdest fucking day of his life" as he rightly puts it.

Having watched Pulp Fiction many times in the past and having not seen it for a while, I really enjoyed seeing it once again.  Although the film is heavily verbose, its almost at times like listening to one of Aaron Sorkin's screenplays, except with loads more swearing, and more blood and violence.  But the characters are all really well written and you can get a sense of who and what they are about.  Vincent as the main character in the film, is both dim and smart at the same time, as he holds a rather stubborn view of life, but at key moments isn't the brightest of sparks (especially leaving his machine gun outside the bathroom, in the scene where Butch faces off him with his gun).

Jules on the other hand is much brighter, cockier and smarter, and as he and Vincent face certain death at one point in the film, Jules is smart enough to realise that at this point, this probably isn't the life for him.  And its most likely Jules decision after his dice with death that would go on to save him from a similar fate than Vincent's.  In the final scene Jules also helps the two coffee shop robbers (from the opening scene) to escape unharmed, as prior to that he would have just killed them.  Jules also gets some of the best dialogue in the film which is forever quotable "I'm a mushroom cloud layin motherfucker, motherfucker.  Every time my fingers touch brain, I'm Superfly TNT, I'm the Guns of the Navarone!" "Check out the big brain on Brad!" "The car hit no motherfuckin bump"! "Normally both your asses would be as dead as fuckin fried chicken, but you happen to be pullin this shit while I'm in a transitional period, so I don't want to kill I wanna help you".   

Mia is also a really good character as she is nice and smart enough to know that her husband is protective of her, but she can look after herself.  And Mia's close call with death also, provides a chance for Vincent to be the good guy and save her, although he wouldn't stand a chance in hell if she died on him.  There's almost a fine line between Mia also flirting and going a step further with Vincent, but Quentin sensibly doesn't let it go that far, although in a later scene its implied they have been seeing each other behind Marcellus's back.

The film itself despite being 2 hours and 30 minutes, rarely drags, although I do admit the Butch and Fabienne scene does drag on a bit, and is the only fairly tedious scene in the film, especially with Fabienne wittering on, about wishing she had a pot belly like "Madonna did when she did Lucky Star!".  You also get the sense that in Quentin's dialogue he loves to keep dropping in these nerdy references to where he might have been as its implied in Vincent's dialogue when he speaks on his travels to Amsterdam. 

And one of the few things that does leave me slighly uncomfortable about Pulp Fiction is the somewhat racist element on the dialogue, especially in the scenes such as Lance the drug dealer saying to Vincent about his deals "Am I a nigger?  Are we in Inglewood??" as well as Jimmie saying to Jules "when you pulled in here, did you see a sign on the front of my house saying dead nigger storage??".  It does show an uncomfortable mix of humour blended in with racism, and it was the same in Reservoir Dogs where the gangsters talk about "how every nigger they know treats their women like a piece of shit".  Also in the redneck scene where Marcellus is raped by one of the good ol boys, it does appear very stereotypical in its depiction of these characters and it almost like Quentin threw in the sodomy scene for shock effect. 

But apart from that its a mighty impressive film, which is also great because not just the dialogue but also how the characters react and interact with one another, when there is no dialogue.  And while Quentin was accussed of writing racist dialogue by Spike Lee when he did Jackie Brown, I think at that time he wrote it specifically for the black guys in the film, so it certainly wasn't racist then, and I guess he is also writing the dialogue from the point of view of the character's attitudes.

So on a final note if you haven't seen Pulp Fiction, I definitely think you should give it a go, I also have very fond memories of my first viewing of it back in my local cinema in 1994, where you literally felt like you were watching a live comedy show, with people laughing almost non stop.  It also has a very cool soundtrack with some great tracks such as Dick Dale's "Miserlou" now unforgettable, and Kool n the Gang's "Jungle Boogie", Aretha Franklin's "Son of a preacher man" and plenty of others.

And with that, that's it.