Cinematic Brilliance

Rating: 8/10 (2 April 2008)

Pulp Fiction, an Academy-Award winning film by Quentin Tarantino, became an instant favorite of mine. The plot focuses on the intersecting lives of several people in unique and unusual tough situations, from a hit man who decides to leave the business to a fighter who wants to keep his honor. From shootings to normal conversations to drugs and back to casual conversations, the film does a superb job of tying the viewer to the characters by making them average people you could see yourself hanging out with, despite their extreme situations and sometimes shocking actions.
I, personally, could really enjoy a movie made up of nothing but conversations if they were written well enough, as I'm constantly amused by debating issues with friends and random facts. Though this film had much action and plot, it also had those regular situations that grounded it all, like conversations about what cheeseburgers are called in foreign countries and whether or not a foot massage is too intimate. To me, these kinds of things are the most important in a film like this. Tarantino is masterful and humanizing everyone in his films, causing you to identify with them and care for their fate. This is what makes you really care when the action starts.
A diner is robbed. A young woman very nearly dies from a drug overdose. A man's head is accidentally shot to pieces in the back of a car in broad daylight. These are just a few of the situations in Pulp Fiction that have your heart racing, hoping the carefully crafted characters can make their way out of. The action was all done very well, each conflict scripted in a way that made each scene uniquely interesting, occasionally disturbing, and wonderful. Another thing that Tarantino's films do well is to give each random side character that gets involved their own life, so that the audience gets the definite feeling that the snapshot we get of their lives isn't the whole of the filmmaker's creation, but rather a window into something more vast.
Overall, I have only good words for this movie. I loved the looped time line. The characters were focused upon highly without the action or drama lacking at all. Everything was well written, be it the odd conversation about a TV pilot or even conversations themselves, or a foiled assassination. I'm certainly looking forward to my second viewing of this amazing film.