Pulp Fiction

Theatrical Release: October 1994 

Genre: Quentin Tarantino

Sub-Genre: Violent Crime Gangster Flick

Starring: 

John "I turned my driveway into a runway" Travolta as Vincent Vega

Samuel L. "I want a purple lightsaber" Jackson as Jules

Bruce Willis as Butch (Spoiler Alert! He's dead the whole time!)

Ving Rhames as Marsellus Wallace

Uma Thurman as Mia, Marsellus Wallace's wife

Eric Stoltz as Lance, your friendly neighborhood smack peddler

Rosanna Arquette as Lance's annoying mullet-headed wife

Tim Roth as Pumpkin (aka: Ringo), the annoying limey who thinks robbing restaurants is a great idea

Amanda Plummer as Honey Bunny, the other dumbass robbing the restaurant currently being patronized by one Bad Motherfucker and his Scientologist Sidekick

John Provost as Timmy

And of course... Lassie

Overview: Let's start with a British guy and his possibly cancer-stricken girlfriend (seriously, girl, get some sun) eating breakfast while smoking in a Denny's, discussing their recent revelation that they should've been robbing restaurants all along. Robbery begins, then cut to the credits. Moving forward...

Two hired thugs dressed like Men In Black rejects, Jules and Vincent, start by going to Brett's apartment (Brett's not important, except to note that Big Kahuna is a tasty burger!) to impart the message from Marsellus Wallace that debts must be paid on time. Jules proceeds to get all biblical on Brett after eating his Big Kahuna burger and slurping the last of his Sprite. Meanwhile, it's not OK to give another man's wife a foot massage and in Amsterdam, the quarter-pounder is called The Royale with Cheese. Next scene...


Bruce Willis (Butch) breaks the record for marathon sneering in one of the longest continuous scenes of no dialogue spoken. Well, Marsellus Wallace is talking but he's off camera. Wallace tells Butch "Your ass goes down in the fifth," referring to a boxing match he's paying Butch to throw. There's a brief pissing contest between Butch and Vincent Vega with no clear winner, then in the next scene, Butch is jumping out of a window into a back alley because - surprise! - his ass didn't go down in the fifth. Not the smartest thing a guy could do, choose his pride over the shitstorm he would encounter by double-crossing LA's most notorious gangster. While trying to get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of town, Butch realizes he forgot his father's watch. Technically, his hot (yet annoying) French girlfriend forgot it when she was packing. Why is the watch so important that Butch would risk certain torture at the hands of Marsellus Wallace to get it? Why don't we let Christopher Walken explain?...

I only have two simple requests if I should meet an early death: 

1) I want the lyrics to Jethro Tull's "Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of A New Day" to be my eulogy and... 
2) I want my eulogy read by Christopher Walken. 


Believe it or not, Butch does get his watch back (with a bonus Pop-Tart!) but as he's driving away, he just happens to encounter Marsellus Wallace. In the crosswalk. Randomly. In Los Angeles (population: 9,280,600 in 1994). Butch realizes this encounter could cost him his life so he decides that Marsellus should "encounter" the front end of his Honda in order to get out of there and save his own ass. There follows shortly after a scene in the basement of a pawn shop that I have a hard time remembering due to its traumatic nature. Most of my memory is being repressed but I know it involved a security guard named Zed, a hillbilly, some ball gags, and a gimp. But FYI, Butch exacts revenge via a samurai sword. Weapon of choice: Badassery...

There's also a cheesy storyline whereby Vincent Vega takes out Mia, Marsellus Wallace's wife, while he's out of town on a gangster business trip. They go to Jackrabbit Slim's, a corny 50's-themed restaurant where the waitresses look like Mamie Van Doren and the waiters look like a jaded Steve Buscemi playing Buddy Holly. Mia and Vincent have a great time but like all non-dates with your Super Gangster boss's wife, it ends with Mia accidentally overdosing after snorting a lot of heroin because she thinks it's coke. 


Expectations: Medium - High. I hadn't seen this movie in more than 10 years but when I had it on tape (yes, VHS, that is correct), I must've watched it every week for two years straight (circa 1995-1996). I know what's coming... Was it a better movie now that I'm older? Or did it feel dated?

For being one of the most original movies I've ever seen, Pulp Fiction opens with probably the most clichéd beginnings I could conceive of: the literary definition of a word. In this case, the word "pulp" and it's pronunciation and definition are shown in white letters on a black screen long enough for you to read it. You're supposed to reflect on the definition as it pertains to the story that's about to unfold. On any given high school graduation day, no fewer than 97% of all graduation speeches begin this way...
"Webster's Dictionary defines 'perseverance' as..." And then some nerd prattles on for 8 minutes about the trials and tribulations that lie ahead for his graduating class in The Real World, a subject he has NO EXPERIENCE with which to base his advisory speech on. It's predictable, it's boring, it's beneath Quentin Tarantino. But I'll allow it.
So how do you know if you're watching a Quentin Tarantino flick? Ask yourself these simple questions as you watch the film...

1. Are there scenes of brutal violence sprinkled throughout?
2. Does the dialogue sound like Andrew Dice Clay with Tourette's Syndrome?
3. Is Samuel L. Jackson in it?

If you answered 'Yes' to all three of these, chances are you're watching a Quentin Tarantino film. And Pulp Fiction is no exception, although it was definitely the film that gave him carte blanche in Hollywood.

Being a gangster flick, you expect the scenes of brutal violence. What I still find surprising is the relationship between Jules and Vincent. If you didn't know any better listening to their banter, you'd think they were married. Bickering about whether foot massages are sexual or friendly, gossiping about people at work, and eating together at Denny's. It's unclear which of them would be the Butch and which would be the Bitch, but I'm leaning towards Vega being the man in that relationship, despite his Morticia Addams hairdo.

Altogether kooky...

Somehow, despite my natural inclination to leave the room when John Travolta comes on the TV, I found his performance in this movie to be just above decent. I still really dislike Travolta movies but he was able to pull off the role of Vincent Vega, a thug who wasn't suited to be anything else in the whole world but that. He's even believable shooting heroin with a needle older than Betty White.

As far as the dialogue, there isn't any that sounds forced or uncharacteristic. Yes, there's a lot of bad language and casually dropped F-bombs, but you have to remember the world these people live in. There aren't many well traveled, Ivy League educated gangsters out there. The word "fuck" is just an audible pause in a lot of circles and this is no exception. In between scenes of tense showdowns, brutal violence, Uma Thurman doing a bump in the ladies room, or Marvin accidentally getting shot in the face, there's also interesting and introspective dialogue taking place. Sometimes it gets a little wordy and unbelievable (Jules reciting Ezekiel 25:17 before he smokes some foo') but other times it's honest and random and you know you've had similar conversations with your friends (the Royale with cheese). In short: very well-written.

The last sign that you're watching a Tarantino movie is usually the most obvious: Samuel L. Jackson. Not sure if he's in the movie? If there's a man who appears to be constantly on the edge of killing someone or is already yelling obscenities about snakes being on a plane, you might be watching Samuel L. Jackson. For final verification, please review the following photo. Is this the man yelling?

"I thought I told you 'no peppers' in my Denver omelette."

My favorite element to this movie, though, is The Case. The briefcase that neither Jules nor Vincent would give up for anything. The case with the mysterious light shining out, the one that caused all the trouble for Brett before he got "churched up" and shot down. A few people get to see inside the case and Ringo is downright amazed by what's inside. But we, the audience, never get to see it. So what the hell is it?! Cash? Diamonds? Human souls? An iPad? And that's my favorite part... It's whatever you want it to be. You get to imagine another storyline revolving around the case and the characters in the movie and what would be so valuable people would wreak such carnage on others to get the case back. Another recent example of this kind of extra-dimensional screenwriting is from Lost In Translation, when Bill Murray meets Scarlett Johansson just before he leaves Tokyo and whispers something in her ear. What did he say to her? I guess that blank is left for me to fill in. By using this element of mystery, in a way Tarantino creates a different movie for each person who watches it. So what do you think is in the case? Leave your responses in the comments at the end of this post.


It was fun to watch this movie again, especially since I got to introduce it to my wife. It didn't really feel too dated, except that no one used the internet for anything in the movie. At times, I wondered if I wasn't cool enough to "get" this movie anymore. Have I grown up or grown old since I was the badass little punk who watched this movie weekly? Where did my rebellious nature go? Did I sell out?! But then my wife brought me some popcorn and a beer and we talked about going to the Home Show next weekend before we have some friends over to grill pork chops with... Now that's pretty cool. I dig it the most.

Overall: 8 out of 10. There's no denying the iconic nature of this film. Google search "Top Ten Movies of the 90's" and Pulp Fiction comes up in almost every list by every smug, pretentious, snotty, self-important internet film critic... Mine too! Pulp Fiction had no real genre to categorize into, kinda like John Denver. Except not dead in a plane crash...


Why only 8? One person: John Travolta. Even though this is his best role, I'm always aware that I'm watching someone act when I watch JT. Plus he dances in this film. Again. In a bolo tie. Find me one Travolta movie where he doesn't dance and is not based on the piss-poor sci-fi of a pedophiliac L. Ron Hubbard. 

"Candy, little boy?... Vodka?"

I'm also docking a point for loose script-writing during the final scene in the restaurant. Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are robbing the place, Jules produces a bigger gun, drops some science on Tim Roth about God, destiny, being a bad mofo, all that junk... The whole robbery plus standoff takes about 15 minutes... During which time NO ONE walks into the restaurant?! I call 'bo-shit.'

Best Scene: The dumbest story has the best scene. For a quick recap, Mia has just overdosed on her platonic date with Vincent after she accidentally snorted a large line of heroin (I'm sure we can all relate). As you'll recall, Mia is Marsellus's wife and Marsellus would be justified in castrating Vincent if Mia died. Just for fun, let's throw in the added complication that Mia cannot go to a hospital because of the federal indictment shitstorm that would rain down once the biggest gangster in LA's wife checked into the hospital due to an overdose. Please to enjoy rest of story...

Trivia: 

The "Bad Motherfucker" wallet actually belongs to Quentin Tarantino.

Contrary to what all your stoner friends tell you, all the clocks in the movie are not set to 4:20. Just the ones in the pawn shop. Cuz I guess 4:20 is as good a time as any for... I can't even type it out. But you know what it is...

Daniel Day-Lewis wanted the role of Vincent Vega but Tarantino said "No way, Christy Brown." Somewhere, the 90's breathed a sigh of relief...

Pulp Fiction is also the movie that started the 90's craze, Movies with Soundtracks to Sell (see The Crow, Empire Records, Romeo + Juliet, or click on the titles to buy the soundtrack from Amazon). 

What my wife said: She'd never seen this movie. I decided not to clue her in to the pawnshop basement "Bring out the gimp." scene. No words could convey what this expression does..

"They're not gonna... Oh. They are."

Who would enjoy this movie: 16-year-old Wes; That dude who lives on your couch, doesn't have a job, never shaves, wears the same bathrobe all day, every day, eats all of your goddamn cereal all the time, and kinda looks like Eric Stoltz.

Watch it if you like: Samuel L. Jackson. This is the movie that made him a star, despite being in some 40+ movies prior to Pulp Fiction.

Next in the Q: Inglourious Basterds. Yep, I'm on a short Tarantino kick. Also, my spellcheck keeps flagging this title in my list of movies to watch...