Brilliant Dialogue Drives Quirky Plot

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2008)

As an avid movie watcher, I had heard the many rave reviews of this particular film, Pulp Fiction. Also, seeing its astonishingly high ranking on the IMDb Top 250 prompted me to watch it as well. I am glad to say that it was not the mainstream violence fiesta I expected it to be, but an original, clever, and plot-twisting drama.
The plot contains a few different stories, one of a boxer, hit-men, and some others, that intertwine throughout the film. Tarantino's style of visual narration is one of boldness, as he uses a frequently often mixed up timeline that really leaves the viewer guessing what's going to be revealed next. His directorial excellence in this element really made me appreciate the film and screenplay that much more. At times, some points in the story seemingly became meaningless, and may have possibly ended up being that way, but it was the brilliantly entertaining dialogue that effortlessly filled these gaps in my attention span and didn't let the odd tales cause a dismay in my opinion on the film. All of Tarantino's scripts ooze humor, intelligence and emotional suspense, and this film I believe to be his most orally inventive. No conversation goes without a laugh or a provoked thought. The dialogue in this movie was just plain amazingly real, as these could have likely been real conversations. It is for this reason, I hold Pulp Fiction in such high regard as a movie, and as a game changer in the industry as far as screenplays go.
The acting, I'm sure to nobody's denial, was excellent. All the characters, Samuel L. Jackson's being my personal favorite, executed their lines with the power and connotations that their writer intended. Many fans of the actors in this film will see their favorite stars portray unlikely roles, as all of the interestingly weird people in the movie are abnormal, and great, if I might add. Without argument, the acting in Pulp Fiction propelled its story and settings to a whole new level in cinema.
Though the awesomely smart, action-packed, and witty Pulp Fiction had some slow areas in its story and development, its excellent dialogue and quirky characters pushed it to cinematic glory. A wonderfully non-ubiquitous movie, I give Pulp Fiction 8/10.