Script, performance and threading together at its altar

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2005)

I have seen RD a couple of times, and I have also has the chance to read thru many of the comments people have made here.
I will say that this movie stands out not because of its performances or because of the story, but because of its direction and script work. Of course the performances are great too.
This is basically a story of 6 men who pull off a heist, and I am not going to spoil it for you one bit if you haven't seen it already. The story may be summarized in a few lines, but what stands out is the way Tarantino was able to handle the script. If you look at it, you start the movie when they are about to go for the robbery, or are just done with it. There are six guys and Tarantino is able to seamlessly go into the flashback for many of them showing how they were roped in and what they are all about. In parallel, the story continues to move forward, and amazingly, it all makes sense! I would regard this movie very highly for this reason. There are threads (flashback, recalls, jokes) in the story, and at the same time total continuity is maintained, and the climax is the crescendo of all of it.
People may say Pulp Fiction is cool... but for script work and control, I don't think it stands anywhere close to this.
I rate it 9/10 - why 9? Cos well, maybe I am a perfectionist. Wink