Gangsters Jules and Vincent are tasked with recovering a valuable package for their boss, Marcellus Wallace. Vincent is also charged with taking the big man's wife out for the evening and keeping her from getting bored while the Marcellus attends to some business. Vincent's rather nervous about this since the last guy to get too friendly with Mrs Wallace ended up being thrown off a 4th storey balcony. But hopefully Marcellus's other business - rigging a boxing match - will go smoothly, which ought to put him in a good mood, right?
I loved Pulp Fiction when it came out. It had a great cast, great music, and a non-linear narrative structure that actually tied together solidly. It also had plenty of 'edgy' and confronting content, and Quentin Tarantino's trademark rambling, discursive, yet somehow cool and compelling dialogue. It was pretty much the perfect film for me at 21.
These days, I certainly still admire the cast and the clever structure, and oh man the soundtrack really is so good, but I find myself more aware of how the clever structure is masking the lack of a truly end-to-end story. Plus I now find that the dialogue and 'edgy' content are sometimes trying just a bit too hard for their own good. Finally, in the case of the content, there's an uncomfortable whiff of homophobia. And yes, this is a nearly 25 year old film and a product of its time, but that's not a get out of jail free card, IMO.
So, there are some blemishes on the rose these days, but Pulp Fiction is still a very well-crafted film, from the time before Tarantino's particular peccadilloes became quite so overly familiar. Worth a look if you don't mind that it's pretty much entirely about not very nice people doing not very nice things.
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