A solid accomplishment of filmmaking.

Rating: 10/10 (2 October 2017)

For a long time, Pulp Fiction was always a movie that never appealed to me as given it's gore and blatant language, I stayed away from it but after a friend had recommend it to me, I decided to finally watch it and let me tell you, it certainly deserves all the praise it's gotten. From it's graphic violence and slick directing to it's talented cast and kick-ass soundtrack, Pulp Fiction is one of the crown jewels of cinema history.
As the movie's story isn't told in chronological order, the three main stories continually interconnect with each other starting with two hit-men named Vincent and Julies appearing at an apartment complex to commandeer a briefcase for their boss Marcellus Wallace and murder a man named Brett and one of his assistants. They then deliver the case to Marcellus only to be kept waiting while Wallace brides a boxer named Butch to be intentionally knocked out during his upcoming match. What follows is a series of events from Vincent taking Marcellus's wife on a date to Marcellus and Butch being held hostage by a pawnshop owner.
One of the first scenes of the movie are Vincent and Julies taking about what a Big Mac in France is called, the scene is humorous and has a certain charm to it but it also makes these two hit-men look a bit too ordinary. If the viewer didn't realize, they would think that these two are just talking on their way to work, but what's interesting is that their discussion has no importance to the outcome of the movie and yet without scenes like this, Pulp Fiction would never have been the movie that it is today. One gets the sense that Tarantino threw whatever he wanted into the film and yet in some way, the finished movie isn't just consistent but amazingly rough around the edges.
As the movie doesn't follow a single narrative, some people will have problems keeping up with the story and who's backstabbing who, but the movie works a lot better if you pay close attention to what is happening and see it as a dark comedy disguised as a crime drama. Each of the stories in the movie start with a circumstance that could have been developed for any run-of the-mill crime movie, but something always manages to go awry, some tiny sudden calamity which effects the entire case and causes it to crumble, driving the frenzied characters to bizarre methods. Tarantino's creativeness comes from a capability to focus on insignificant details and accompany them wherever they might go, even if they divert the story away from predictable story changes.
It's no surprise that fans of the movie have spent arguing about what's in the suitcase, which leads to them delving deeper into the film more than Tarantino anticipated. The movie is so wonderfully arranged with a lot of amazing details, many of them you won't even see on your first viewing so the film seems to be bawling for deep analysis, but there isn't anything to really analyze, as the name of the film implies, it's an accomplishment in craft and method and a distinguished and arranged one at that. Perhaps no other movie script will ever find a superior role for detours as the entire movie seems to involve them at every turn. No character speaks a line of dialog in a sincere way as Julies does in one of the final scenes of the movie where he could just tell the couple robbing a restaurant that they should just stay clam and no one will be injured which would be a typical line of dialog from your standard action or crime movie, but rather than do that, Jules goes out on a limb about what Fonzie is then asks the robber to get his wallet. Tarantino relishes every phrase uttered by his characters, discovering a promising joke in every conversation and fortifying it with crafty mainstream culture mentions, but the dialog isn't just funny; it's packed with insightful reflections on human conduct or people's religious views. Mia Wallace's comment to Vincent about reveling in the silence or Julies reciting Ezekiel 25.17 are the best examples of this and out of all the scripts to come out of Hollywood, Pulp Fiction is truly one of the best.
The film is also shot wonderfully with no shortage of bright colors, amazing camcorder shots and fantastic camera angles, the soundtrack is also amazing with a great mix of classic songs ranging from Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" and Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" to Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon" which help to make it a truly unique movie but also makes it more fun to watch.
for a film of this magnitude to work, the cast had to be perfect for the roles and they certainly deliver on that. Uma Thurman is wonderful as Mia Wallace nailing the sharp dialog with ease, Bruce Willis provides a dynamic performance as the boxer Butch as does Maria De Mederios as Butch's girlfriend. Ving Rhams plays mob boss Marcellus Wallace in true style. Eric Scholtz is great as the drug dealer Lance, Christopher Waken pops up in a flash from the past scene and gives a fine performance even if his time on screen isn't very much and even director Quentin Tarantino shows up in a short cameo. John Travolta's performance as Vincent Vega is truly a sight to see as he puts a new coat of paint on the role of the hit-man and makes it his own with just the right amount of elegance and charm, while Samuel L. Jackson is perfect as Jules with his undercurrent of evilness, showing an attitude of vicious anger and is still to maintain his cool even when facing death.
There isn't much else I can say about Pulp Faction except to go watch it if you haven't already.