Written by Tarantino and Roger Avary and directed by Tarantino, the film is a hybrid of crime drama and black comedy that follows a chronological storyline told in a non-chronological way. It’s almost hard to follow at first, but the film follows four different storylines, all of which intertwine throughout the streets of Los Angeles. In one storyline, a prize-winning boxer (Bruce Willis) goes on the lam after double-crossing a mob boss (Ving Rhames). In another, the mob boss’s two hitmen (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson) go to retrieve a mysterious briefcase from an informant. Travolta’s character, Vincent Vega, spends another storyline taking the boss’s wife (Uma Thurman) out to dinner when the boss is away. Finally, in the film’s bookending segments, a pair of wannabe robbers (Tim Roth & Amanda Plummer) hold up a diner.
Packed into a two-and-a-half-hour running time, not every storyline holds the same weight. Some get more screen time than others, and some have more vitality. While Tarantino does go overboard in his now-trademark elements of graphic violence, profanity and an abundance of cultural references, the dialogue in “Pulp Fiction” pulses with a mesmerizing energy. The humor is at times vicious and uncomfortable, but it’s delivered excellently, and the script gives us several lines that have become pop culture phenomena, like an exchange between Jackson and a target (Frank Whaley) that begins with hamburgers and ends at divine intervention.
Tarantino also sets up his reputation as a director who gets truly great performances out of his actors. In the midst of a career slump, John Travolta is outstanding as Vincent, a hitman trying to adjust back to American customs after time abroad. Thurman, who would go on to lead Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films (the first of which may be his greatest masterpiece), is great as the mob boss’s wife Mia. Ving Rhames as mob boss Marsellus Wallace and Bruce Willis as boxer Butch Coolidge are both stellar as well.
Christopher Walken shows up for one uncomfortably funny flashback, and various actors – including Eric Stoltz, Harvey Keitel and Rosanna Arquette – come and go. The best performance in the film is without a doubt delivered by Samuel L. Jackson, who crafts a character deserving his own movie. As Jules Winfield, Vincent Vega’s partner-in-crime and a veteran hit man in an existential crisis as he nears retirement, Jackson is a force of nature. Whether he’s reciting a chilling Bible verse during an interrogation or trying to clean up after a standoff gone wrong, Jackson is commanding on-screen, at once terrifying and wickedly funny as Jules seeks redemption. It’s the best performance of his career, and his Oscar loss that year is a snub for the ages.
“Pulp Fiction” may be violent, profane and hard to follow at times, but it remains a must-see.
