Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

9/10

Starring

John Travolta

Bruce Willis

Samuel L. Jackson

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

This Academy Award-winning screenplay was done by Quentin Tarantino, the story is nonlinear and the screenplay is rich, and the movie is full of stars. Tarantino’s dream of making the movie look bigger than it actually is, was achieved. Made with 8.5 million dollars, the movie looked like it was made with more. The story arc, although it curves around 3 main and distinctive people and 3 main distinctive stories, it still has a way of reeling you in and keeping you attentive without losing you along the way.

Meant to be a trilogy of three shorts, rather than a full length feature, it was first written by Roger Avary in the fall of 1990, while Tarantino worked on the script development 2 years after, the movie was then picked up for production by Columbia TriStar, who later dropped the movie because they felt the movie was too long, out of place, and it was too low budgeted, before the producer Bender shipped it off to Miramax.

The movie is depicted in a nonlinear tale also the narrative is presented out of sequence, it is about three main characters.

We have first a mob hitman Vincent Vega (John Travolta) who was hired to kill Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis).

Then we have a prizefighter Butch Coolidge, who double-crossed a mobster by winning a bout that he took money for throwing.

And the last main cast Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is Vincent’s partner who felt he has heard a calling from God to leave the hitman life, when he was shot and the shooter misses.

Each story is interwoven and intersects at various parts; if well put together, the movie makes one whole, complete picture.

Before this, John Travolta was losing his edge in his movies and Willis was finding it hard to make a good movie after many big budget flops, after this flick they both got their edge back. For financing, Miramax (the film's distributors) totally financed the film, and paid all the main actors the same per week wage regardless of their status.

The movie was a huge financial success, making over 200 million from its 8.5 million production, and it was a good introduction to Tarantino’s film style of nonlinear story arc.

Pulp fiction is a nice addition to movies on your shelf; it won an Academy Award and a BAFTA award for Best Original Screenplay for both Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. It also gave Samuel L. Jackson a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor.