Two bumbling restaurant burglars, madly in love. An interracial hitman duo sauntering around LA doing their boss' dirty work. One then landing in a compromising position with his boss' free-spirited wife. And an underdog boxer who kills his opponent and subsequently acquires others outside the ring. As the tagline says: "Four stories... about one story."
Quentin Tarantino is undoubtedly the most iconoclastic filmmaker, certainly from America, to have emerged since the New Hollywood movement of the '60s and '70s. He hit the scene in 1992 with the superb Reservoir Dogs, but if that fired the starter gun for an indie filmmaking revolution, 1994's Pulp Fiction was surely the movie that blasted a huge hole in the mainstream-indie divide and changed the face of indie cinema forever. It grossed over $200 million, won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, won Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary the Best Original Screenplay Oscar (alongside five other nominations including for Best Picture and Director), secured the careers of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman, and returned John Travolta to superstardom.
Travolta and Jackson respectively play Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, foot soldiers for LA mob kingpin Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). They're an effective team despite being a study in contrasts: Vincent is white and Jules black; Vincent enjoys his job and Jules hates his; Jules is very religious, frequently citing Ezekiel 25:17, and Vincent is agnostic; and they also frequently have differences of opinion. They also get stuck as couriers of a suitcase which may or may not contain their boss' soul. When his wife Mia (Thurman) enters the fray, it becomes a night both she and Vincent hope Marsellus never learns about. Boxer Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) lives with his fragile French girlfriend Fabienne and has to fight with more than his fists before he can get the fuck outta Dodge, and Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) are the would-be restaurant Bonnie and Clyde who could use a few tips from that duo.
When you unravel it all, Pulp Fiction means fuck all, but that is the precise point. It was the first Tarantino film I ever saw and while I love his whole filmography, he has and will never again scale the heights he achieved here. He directs scene after scene with ferocious panache and draws career-best performances from his whole cast, the standout unquestionably being Samuel L. Jackson. But QT's greatest talent for me has always been his writing, and I'm prepared to call this the greatest screenplay ever written. Check the 'Memorable Quotes' page on its IMDb entry; I swear it's like the whole fucking script is there! My favourite line in film history: "I'm prepared to scour the Earth for that motherfucker. If Butch goes to Indochina I want a n----- hidin' in a bowl of rice ready to pop a cap in his ass." And amidst all the clever running jokes (namely how every time Vincent uses the bathroom something bad happens) and obvious but fitting intertextual references, it's bursting at the seams with characters and situations that feel authentic and thoroughly understood.
Throw in some sharp editing (RIP Sally Menke) and a very refreshing and eclectic retro soundtrack, and Pulp Fiction is quite simply beyond praise. Certainly one of the best films ever, and THE best of all indies for me. Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.
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