VHS : Pulp Fiction [1994]

Rating: - Pulp fact
I liked this film when I first saw it and now I have changed my mind with repeated watching. Like all Tarantino films, the dialogue between characters is unnatural. It feels like one person talking to themselves. The characters all talk in this faux intelligent geeky way about tiny things and there is no discernable differences between outlook or delivery of the characters words. The story doesn't hang together very well and the use of celebrity cameos is just celuloid cronyism. I fell for the hype, save your time and money and don't buy into this trash. Travolta is a fake, Jackson can't act, QT is annoying, Thurman is lovely, Keitel is cheesey and not at all hard like he makes out. There is too much wrong with this film to call it a classic. It's silly. At least Tom Cruise isn't in it, I might have given it an extra star just for that, but I didn't.

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Rating: - Cool film!
Great film! But...

The only problem i have with this film is the way the characters have the tendency to engage into needlessly pedantic and sometimes philosophical conversations about silly things like foot massages, eating pork products, cheeseburgers etc. Apart from that its an ace film!

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Rating: - No classic
I do not deny that this much lauded Quentin Tarantino film set in a violent underworld is enjoyable. There is snappy dialogue, interesting characters - such as Samuel L. Jackson's Bible-quoting hit man, Harvey Keitel's problem solving 'Wolf' and Bruce Willis's boxer on the run -, intelligent banter between the film's various characters - such as between Samuel L. Jackson and his hit man partner John Travolta and between John Travolta and his gangster boss's wife Uma Thurman when the two of them go out on a 'date' -, a number of conflicts involving guns that highlight the violent underworld which the film's characters inhabit, a particularly horrifying scene that takes place in the basement of a second-hand store and even an excellent cameo from Tarantino himself as Samuel L. Jackson's testy friend who doesn't want his wife to find out about his underworld connections. But these elements unfortunately do not add up to a whole because this film is lacking the most basic ingredient that any film must possess: a plot. There just isn't one. Lots of 'stuff' happens in this film but there is no story to follow, no tale being told, just the activities of a group of disparate characters who do this and that and then the film is over. It may seem strange that I am giving this film 4 stars after such criticism but that is because what there is to watch is enjoyable as I have already said, despite the film's severe shortcomings. This is a testament to Tarantino's ability to create an enjoyable film experience for the viewer. But just as candy floss is only meant to please the taste buds and not fill the stomach likewise this film cannot be considered a meal, because of what it lacks. Yes, it is enjoyable. But it is no classic.

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Rating: - Another amazing film from Tarantino!
This film is one of my favorate films ever! Funny, gory, and action packed. Very good acting from John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman,
Samuel L. Jackson.

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Rating: - Just as good as you remember
I have just re-watched this for the first time in at least eight years, having been almost obsessed with it when it was first released (I paid to see it five times at the cinema and I have no shame in admitting it). I was quite fearful of it not living up to my memory but I was left truly staggered; it has weathered the years (almost 14) astonishingly well and is undoubtedly the classic I thought it would be 20 minutes into the first time I saw it, slack-jawed and saucer-eyed at the Odeon in 1994.

It is no exaggeration to call Pulp Fiction a tour de force. Its screenplay rips along like a tornado and the actors are clearly having the time of their lives. All this led to quite a furore over Tarantino himself that had started with Reservoir Dogs and went bonkers with the release of this film. Now all that has calmed down what remains is a brilliantly directed film. Tarantino was not a show-off, he just perfectly and confidently served his own screenplay. The film has also aged superbly, its distinct look and invented brand names seems to age-proof it. The only thing that dates it is the size of the mobile phones and the fact that they are referred to as "cellular phones" a couple of times, but that it not a gripe, technology is a cruel mistress to any filmmaker even a visionary such as Tarantino.

Interestingly, in one of the extras on the second DVD Tarantino himself says "This is a total `get it out your system movie'", and judging by what he has come up with since that is fair comment; nothing has really matched Pulp Fiction in sheer consistency and this could well be Tarantino's Citizen Kane.

There isn't really too much to get excited about extras-wise, excepting the deleted scenes that Tarantino - rather irritatingly and unnecessarily - introduces. Any fan who bought the screenplay would know all about these any way.

There is a cobbled together "documentary" where you probably won't learn anything new and just seems to be a lot of fawning.

Worth watching, for the wrong reasons, is the hilariously self-important excerpt from movie "experts" Siskel & Ebert, who don't seem to know a single thing about anything. There's plenty of "Oh boy! I couldn't agree with you more Gene!" and a buttock-clenching reference to the "information super-highway", ha ha! They would have been better off getting a contemporary-to-now academic to assess it rather than the opinions of two stuffed shirt hacks from way back in the day.

Conversely, in a behind -the-scenes montage Bruce Willis, when referring to one of the small video cameras attached to the car in which he's sat, predicts the Blair Witch Project thus: "Some day, in the next five years, someone's going to take up one of these and make a feature film...
"Some kid, some 17-year-old kid, is going to make a drop-dead, poorly lit, video movie that's going to be the hippest f**king thing and there's going to be 100 of them and they're going to cost 60,000 bucks."

Frankly, Pulp Fiction doesn't really need any extras. This fast-talking, multi-stranded, character-driven magnum opus spawned many imitations that didn't even come close to its brilliance and that have all been forgotten. No DVD collection is complete without it.