Watching Pulp fiction is like drinking coffee....when the caffeine hits the brain, you are addicted. I went to watch pulp fiction, expecting it to be a BAD movie. I hadn’t read the reviews and considering the overload of stars, I expected no justice to be done to the roles of any one of them. How wrong I was! Tarantino does the Indian rope trick on the film’s plot. He breaks it up into several individual plots and then weaves them back to an intriguing web of clarity and confusion.....
The story consists of numerous sub-plots all held together by the lead characters.
Travolta and Samuel Jackon are hitmen for the mob. They’re out to hit someone who has double-crossed the boss. The hit nearly turns fatal for them, but they end up getting it right.Then on the way back they kill one of their own men, by mistake and their headaches start as to how to clear up the mess without attracting the attention of the cops.
In the meantime, two small time robbers, who routinely rob drugstores and gas-stations, decide to rob all the patrons of a decent middle class restaurant.
Bruce Willis is on the run from the same mafia boss on account of first fixing a boxing match to lose and then winning it. Travolta is assigned the job of bumping him off.
Travolta is assigned the job of taking the boss’s babe out on a date. He’s jittery ’cause there are rumours that one of his ex-colleagues met his maker, after getting thrown off the top of a skyscraper, ’cause he’d touched the same babe(Uma Thurman).
Now the fun starts....All plots run simultaneously, with Uma ODing on Travolta’s coke, and getting saved at the last minute, Samuel Jackson and John Travolta clearing up the dead man in the car and then ending up at the same restaurant as where the hold-up is going on, Bruce willis bumping into the boss inadvertently and then both ending up as .....
The movie reminded me of ’Catch22’ by Joseph Heller. Both the plots have complex subplots and the author/directors act as master puppeteers, juggling around the various plots held together by the lead characters. Some way through the plot, you lose all perspective of time, as there is a deliberate effort to avoid time-based sequencing of the plots.
In one scene, you watch Travolta dancing with Uma Thurman, classic moves that remind you of Grease and Saturday night fever, and in the next, he’s busy arguing with Samuel Jackson on whether God wants them to quit the hit-man business.
All in all, its like taking a chemical trip without the chemicals and when you come out of the show, you’re left with a longing to get back there again and enjoy the roller-coaster ride that the movie takes you on.
The dark humour in the movie too leaves you a taste of Catch22. If you love the Catch22, then go see this film. If you love this film, then go read Catch 22. If you havent tried both, then you better do so......
merry watching