Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)

A non linear film that focuses on the lives of two hitmen, a boxer, their gangster boss and his wife and how their lives intertwine in a spree of violence. Honey Bunny and Pumpkin plot to rob a diner which Vincent and Joules are eating after Jules has an enlightening experience which results in him negotiating with the two robbers rather than killing them. Meanwhile, Butch is a boxer of yesterday who takes a payment to throw a fight for Marcellus Wallace but chooses instead to beat his opponent, fleeing from him before trying to flee the country. Butch is forced to return to his apartment after his fiancé forgets his fathers watch which causes the death of Vincent after he leaves his gun in the kitchen and is shot by Butch after coming out the bathroom. In another scene, Vincent has to take out Wallace’s wife, who overdoses after a night out and has to rush to his dealers house to inject her with insulin to save her life so that his boos wont kill him.

There are a great number of admirable aspects of this film that really shine through whether your watching it for the first time or the 10th time. The acting is on point, cinematography is excellent, sound is impactful, editing is great and the overall aesthetic look of the film is a very realistic depiction of what the film is trying to show. I think the most notable of all these aspect though is the performances that the actors give that allows these characters to seem so real and genuinely make the audience interested in what they have to say and what happens to them. Looking at Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Jules, the quick witted and intimidating hitman, he does a brilliant job of portraying his character to be a genuinely funny character when he doesn’t have a gun in his hands and a brutal and dangerous hitman that is content with killing men for his boss in other scenes, all whilst making the audience invested in his character despite knowing that he is a bad guy. These performances are present throughout the entire movie, looking at Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames and John Travolta whilst the supporting cast of Harvey Keitel and Quentin Tarantino, who aren’t at the forefront of the audiences minds, give great performances that reinforce the idea of comedy in a film about violence and killers.

Of the top of my head there are so many scenes that add up to make this a great film, some because of their action, others because of the stakes that are involved, but the best scene scene for me would have to be the diner scene, starting at the beginning of the film and then closing by returning to the scene at the end of the film but instead of from the perspective of the two robbers we see it from Jules and Vincent’s perspective.

Originally we see the robbers plan to rob the diner and then take their guns out and threaten the customers but then we cut to an entirely different scene with Jules and Vincent before this event has happened as the information that they are in the diner too hasnt been told yet and so we dont know what consequences that will ring for the robbers as we know that the robbers are in over their heads through the experiences with Jules and Vincent that show they arent afraid to kill.

The genius of Tarantino’s storytelling ability takes its main form in the way his films are able to grab the audience and keep them hooked throughout, creating often truly suspenseful and gut-renching scenes. When the film begins, the first words we hear on screen are “forget it, its too risky”. Tarantino has effectively already grabbed the audiences attention by intriguing them as to what is “too risky”, promising that something very dangerous will occur in the film involving the two characters on screen and thereby keeps our focus maintained on they’re dialogue as they eat and the audience are left questioning what they’re intentions are and how they will accomplish it. The non linear structure of the film works in favour of this intrigue as the scene ends just as the two robbers begin to threaten the customers, then cutting to a new scene. By starting and ending this scene at he beginning and end of the film, Tarantino promises that the scene will be resolved and therefore keeps us hooked throughout as we come to better understand the characters in the film and so when we return to the scene, the dread isn’t for the unsuspecting customers at the hands of the robbers, rather the robbers at the hands of the malicious Jules and Vincent.