Worth the hype

Rating: 9/10 (18 October 2016)

Quentin Tarantino's gallery of grotesques is definitely a strange film to watch. Breaking many of the modern rules of a film - there are four interlocking stories instead of one, the subject matters tackled are extremely adult and may not be to everybody's taste - it's a wonder that the film succeeds, but in the end PULP FICTION has to be one of the best films of the 1990s. As much as we would like to ignore it, this is what the world is like today, full of drugs, violence and hostility, and it's about time a film faced up to the real world. PULP FICTION does just this.
I liked three of the stories, but the one involving Travolta and Thurman left me cold I'm afraid. For a start, it's far too long and needlessly talky (about nothing in particular), and could have been cut down a lot. It seems to take ages to get to the actual horror of the piece (Thurman's drug overdose and subsequent heart injection), and when that moment comes, it's over extremely quickly. There is no particularly memorable dialogue here, either.
The surrounding story, where the couple hold up a restaurant, is perfectly set up, and the final moments, where Jackson holds up the robbers himself, does show some of Tarantino's genius as Jackson quietly discusses the situation with his would-be robbers in a matter-of-fact way. The story of Travolta and Jackson trying to clear up their 'mess' is an excellent piece of black comedy, well-timed and with a scene-stealing performance from Harvey Keitel as the Wolf. Bruce Willis' story is very good too, with some unexpected twists in the tale and some harrowing scenes.
There's a catchy jukebox score and an ensemble cast to liven things up too. The cast list is a reading of '90s talent: John Travolta in his comeback film; Samuel L Jackson was relatively unheard-of then; Uma Thurman proved herself as a woman to be reckoned with; Bruce Willis lent another world-weary performance to his CV, and none the worse for it; Ving Rhames also proved himself as an up-and-coming actor; Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer were cool and hysterical in equal measures; Harvey Keitel stole the show as clear-up man; Quentin Tarantino put in a twitchy cameo appearance which wasn't as nearly as bad as everybody said; Eric Stoltz was memorable as a stoned drug addict...the list is endless, really. There are other names I miss out in the interests of space.
While Tarantino's rapid-fire dialogue is as sharp as ever (his decision to have the hit men talk about normal, everyday things like Quarter Pounders and Big Macs instead of "gangster stuff" was very clever), it is the succession of odd images which really stay in the mind, such as Travolta accidentally blowing apart someone's head; Willis and Rhames fighting, escaping into a spare-part shop and getting attacked; Thurman's adrenaline injection and the hysteria surrounding it; and finally Roth and Plummer getting the tables turned on them. All of these moments help to make PULP FICTION an endearing slice of cinema, which I'm sure will be remembered as a minor classic in years to come.