A Perfect follow-up to Reservoir Dogs!

Rating: 10/10 (28 May 2019)

Quentin Tarantino made a nice splash with his cinematic debut of directing Reservoir Dogs. And less than five years later, he followed up with another wonderful non-linear masterpiece that not only lived up to the previous films performance, but outshined it as well, appropriately called Pulp Fiction.
Much like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction is not for everyone. There is an incredible amount of cussing and swearing as well as violence and disturbing imagery. There are some callbacks to the style of Reservoir Dogs as well with the violence, like not showing the violent boxing match that is the main point of Bruce Willis' character's story in the film is definitely a callback to Tarantino not showing the botched diamond robbery in Reservoir Dogs. Some of the scenes of violence are so out there, though, that they are almost like R-Rated scenes from a Three Stooges short, most notably the scene where Uma Thurman needs to be revived from overdosing on Heroin. However, don't expect such comedical style all the time, since there is that one scene with Bruce and Ving that is like Deliverance was directed by Eli Roth.
As usual, the casting choices of the film are spot-on. Ving Rhames, who I really only have seen else in the Mission Impossible films, plays a great, tough, and much more likable gangster than Lawrence Tierney in Reservoir Dogs. John Travolta's character, despite doing a great dance scene, plays a pretty despicable bonehead who gets his comeuppance in a nice satisfying way of gallows humor. The true star is Samuel L. Jackson, playing a good-natured and loyal gangster who, following a slightly botched job, gets a better view of his violent life and decides to get his act together. The cameos are, as usual, really cool, also. Bruce Willis plays an okay tough guy in this one also, though his tantrum when he loses his watch is a little out of control. I mean, I agree that the watch is critically important to his character, but he didn't have to blow up at his girlfriend like that...
And of course, the soundtrack rocks.