CAUTION: The following piece might contain spoilers!
A queer couple, of a fidgety young man and an appalling woman, are shown having a strange discussion in a coffee shop. They’re talking about the pros and cons of robbing gas stations and banks. All of a sudden, without adequate planning, they decide to rob the same coffee shop they’re making plans in. Taking their pistols out, they grab control.. Credits roll..... You’re hooked..
The opening credits give a deja vu feeling of B-Grade, guilty pleasure cum cult American trash rolling from sometime in the 70s.. Weird stuff..
The next sequence features two guys, Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, having a conversation over fast food joints. They make the viewer initially believe they’re some Fortune 500 associates.. A shot taken from within the trunk of the car.. Two pistols taken out...the fellows turn out to be hitmen. The McDonalds discussion gives way to some Marsellus Wallace and his deed of throwing a foot massaging jerk over the window.... Debate over the justification of his actions follows..
Highlight - Killer dialogue
Vincent Vaga takes his feared boss’ wife to dinner. Dialogue ensues...Talks about milkshakes and rumours about her husband’s actions clarified... followed by some Travoltian dance moves....Vega drops Mrs Wallace back home and decides to leave.. However, not before something dreadful happens..
Highlight - Unpredictable, edgy and fun
A sub-plot revolving a gold watch, a prick of a thing resulting in chaos that in turn results in surviving crazy, impossible situations.. Shootouts, accidents, surviving homo rape-attempts..
Highlight: Humorous, wacky and bloody violent...
Screenplay flirts with viewers.. Takes you back to Jules and Vincent at the start.. movie turns into a black comedy of an accidental murder.
Unrelated sublots mingle in the climax.. A passage from the Holy book of Bible is quoted by a contract killer, followed by his understanding of the same.. Incidentally he has shot three people to death not more than a couple of hours ago, The viewer sits there.. Alarmed, overwhelmed.. Spellbound...
THE END..
Quentin Tarantino - a crazy b or a maniacal movie-making genius?
Both, I suppose....
To summarize my thoughts, it wasn’t a movie I was looking forward to with tremendous excitement, even though an entire generation of film geeks had praised it to the skies. I think my indifference towards the genre of crime fiction made me sceptical of watching it. But I had to give it a go someday, to understand what was so path-breaking and remarkable about Tarantino’s second crime saga.
Pulp Fiction turned out to be a once - in - lifetime cinema watching experience. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but its a film you should try watching more than once.
It has the power of making you think differently every time you go through it.
Recommended with a CAPITAL R!