Top 20 Movie Pulp Fiction (1994) ranks 6th in Matt Lynn Digital’s Top 20 Movies in ranked order listing. The Quentin Tarantino directed and co-written film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino and Roger Avary while garnering seven Oscar nominations in total. While Forrest Gump (1994) starring Tom Hanks was busy winning six of its thirteen Academy Award nominations, Pulp Fiction was the movie bringing true pulp fiction to the big screen with a Vintage Library definition for the genre that includes “[b]igger-than-life heroes, pretty girls, exotic places, strange and mysterious villains.” This sixth movie on our top movie listing brings four stories of stylized pulp violence intertwining with movie actor legend homages into tales of would-be redemption.
As has come to characterize many movies by Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction provided a pulpy, nostalgic, retroactive sense for a filmmaking or popular culture past that Tarantino, in my opinion, looked to celebrate. The narrative lines starting with Vincent Vega as portrayed by John Travolta and Jules Winnfield as portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson are two examples, as they were working at the behest of Marsellus Wallace (played by Ving Rhames) when we first meet them.
Vincent and Jules were tasked with retrieving the briefcase and other property of Marsellus from an apartment while killing the occupants. The two banter about hamburgers and escorting Marsellus’ wife later in the movie when they eventually kill two apartment occupants while letting a man in the bathroom go unchallenged. That man comes out gun blazing at Vincent and Jules and, from the reckoning of Jules, miraculously misses the two of them while emptying the weapon of its magazine of bullets. Jules takes this as a sign that it is his time to leave the business.
(Jules, left, and Vincent)
These two eventually continue their back-and-forth dialogue in their vehicle when Vincent accidentally makes a mess of their car by accidentally shooting the man from the bathroom. The two head to Jules’ old pal Jimmie (as played by Tarantino). Jimmie uses his fleeting connection to Marsellus to call in a fixer to care for the situation, wherein Jules and Vincent acquire a ridiculous shorts and t-shirt outfit as a penance for the Wolf (played by Harvey Keitel) fixing the car and the deceased apartment occupant.
(Jimmie, left, and the Wolf)
Awash in the miracle miss from the apartment, Jules and Vincent stop for breakfast at a diner that leads to the second major story. Pumpkin (played by Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (played by Amanda Plummer) stage a robbery with murder by gun threats and a collecting of patron wallets. Jules gets the wallets back with intimidation, though lets Pumpkin and Honey Bunny keep his money without revenge since Jules sees his life after the apartment as a sign to leave the lifestyle.
At Marsellus’ apartment, the third and fourth stories get more traction. We meet Butch Coolidge, a boxer played by Bruce Willis that Marsellus contracts to lose a fight. Bruce spars with Vincent here as Jules banters with the bartender on how Vincent must escort Mia Wallace (played by Uma Thurman) for the evening.
(Mia, left, and Vincent)
Dressed normally again, Vincent takes drugs (heroin) before picking up Mia for the night. Mia prepared for the evening by having taken cocaine. At a retro 1950s club, we see Steve Buscemi cameo as Buddy Holly as a lead in for Vincent and Mia stylize dancing. Mia finds and takes Vincent’s heroin, and overdoses right there in the club. Vincent gets adrenaline and revives Mia with a giant hypodermic of adrenaline. Both Mia and Vincent agree on parting company that Marsellus needs learn nothing of this.
In anticipation of his fight, we learn through flashback to an episode from Butch’s childhood that Christopher Walken as a prisoner of war had smuggled a watch back to Butch in the USA from the POW camp in Vietnam. In the present day, we see Butch knock out his opponent in the boxing ring before being comforted by his girlfriend in a prearranged motel where she waits. Marsellus, unhappy with the loss experienced at this turn, puts out a hit on Butch.
The next morning, Butch tempts fate by returning to his apartment to grab his watch. Mixed up in another apartment scene in a bathroom, Butch regains his watch and kills Vincent, who was there to kill Butch. Upon leaving, Butch literally runs into Marsellus in the street. The second chases the first into a sleazy gun shop. The two are set to be treated quite badly by the shop owner and his friend. Butch escapes, selects a samurai sword from the first floor, and comes back to rescue Marsellus by killing Zed the friend while leaving Maynard the gun ship owner for Marsellus.
(Marsellus, left, and Butch)
Thankful for being saved and being offered revenge for the gun shop attack, Marsellus agrees to let the boxing treachery slide if Butch leaves town. Retrieving his girlfriend on Zed’s chopper, Pulp Fiction ends with Butch as the big winner in a sea of misery as he rides off to Knoxville declaring to his girlfriend that “Zed is dead.”
(Butch’s girlfriend, left, and Butch)
Matt – Thursday, December 21, 2017
Matt Lynn Digital 