Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

In co-writer/director and B-movie fanatic Quentin Tarantino's (and Miramax's) great second feature - he delivered this non-formulaic and inventive hit; it was an 'independent' film distributed by Miramax that featured guns, femmes fatales, deadly hit-men, and drugs. The great tri-story classic, a stylish, immensely-popular, violent, off-beat, B-movie cult classic with witty dialogue and heart-stopping violence, skillfully presented a revolutionary script structure with its four interwoven (and fragmented) stories or vignettes told in non-linear order.

The film's 3 (or 4) part plot told about corruption and temptation in LA's sleazy underworld among low-life criminals, thugs, drug-dealers, hitmen, a washed-up crooked boxer, and restaurant-robbing lovers.

• Prologue and Epilogue - small-time hold-up artists - "Pumpkin" (Roth) and "Honey Bunny" (Plummer) - plotted a robbery in an LA restaurant, attempting to rob two hit-men of their briefcase (with cash); the robbers were lucky - they were allowed to leave with wallet cash, but not with the briefcase.
• Philosophically-talkative, well-dressed hit men Jules Winfield (Jackson) and Vincent Vega (Travolta) carried out a lethal hit for their vengeful, underworld boss Marsellus Wallace (Rhames) against double-crossing college-aged kids, including Brett (Frank Whaley), one of Marsellus' business partners; they retrieved Marsellus' briefcase and brought it to him, as he was in the midst of fixing an upcoming boxing match.
• Vincent entertained Marsellus' irresponsible wife Mia (Thurman) one evening - and then she dangerously overdosed on heroin, requiring a late-night shot of adrenalin to her heart in the home of Vincent's drug dealer Lance (Eric Stoltz).
• By not taking a dive in a match, prize-fighting boxer Butch (Willis) scammed and double-crossed Marcellus during his last bout and planned to skip town, but he was delayed retrieving his dead father's lucky golden watch in his apartment, when he crossed paths with Vincent and shot him dead; shortly later, both Butch and Marsellus were drawn together and mutually helped each other during a deadly sexual assault, and then decided to wipe the slate clean and depart peacefully.
• After surviving the shootout and retrieving the suitcase, the two hitmen picked up their associate Marvin (Phil LaMarr), who was unfortunately and accidentally shot to death in the back seat - at point-blank range - in their moving car by a careless Vincent; they had to call on gangland cleanup specialist The Wolf (Keitel) to clean up the bloody mess.

The unpredictably shuffled, post-modern film, winner of Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or, shocked with its hip combination of violence, sex, drugs, and profanity (including 269 F-words). The film brought new fame and a revived career to star John Travolta (in an ensemble cast). It garnered seven Academy Award nominations:, including Best Picture, Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson), Best Supporting Actress (Uma Thurman), Best Director, and Best Film Editing, and won only a single award for Best Original Screenplay (Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino).

With a budget of 8ドル million, the film grossed revenues of 107ドル.9 million (domestic) and 213ドル.9 million (worldwide).

• the opening credits sequence was set in the Hawthorne Grill - an LA coffee shop, where a pair of hold-up artists were plotting to rob patrons: "Pumpkin"/Ringo (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny"/Yolanda (Amanda Plummer)
• meanwhile, a casual conversation was held between two low-life, black-clad, contract hit men Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) about the strange names given to Parisian McDonald's menu items such as a QuarterPounder with cheese ("a Royale with cheese") and a Big Mac ("Le Big Mac")
• they continued to discuss their gangster boss Marsellus Wallace's (Ving Rhames) jealous attitude toward anyone giving his moll-wife Mia (Oscar-nominated Uma Thurman) a foot massage:
  • Jules: "Ain't no f--kin' ballpark neither. Now look, maybe your method of massage differs from mine, but, you know, touchin' his wife's feet and stickin' your tongue in the Holiest of Holies ain't the same f--kin' ballpark; it ain't the same league; it ain't even the same f--kin' sport. Look, foot massages don't mean s--t."

• they were on their way to San Fernando Valley to conduct a hit (or execution) on Brett (Frank Whaley), who had betrayed his business partner Marsellus Wallace by taking a briefcase; before the brutal murder, Jules recited a crazed, oft-repeated, paraphrased Bible quote from Ezekiel 25:17:
  • "Ezekiel 25:17. 'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon thee!'"

• Vincent entertained Wallace's irresponsible moll wife Mia one evening - they visited a retro-fifties era diner Jack Rabbit Slims (with the MC impersonating Ed Sullivan) - during a dance-off contest, they performed a hip-swiveling twist dance known as the Batusi (a dance invented for the campy mid-60s Batman TV series and made famous by Adam West) to the Chuck Berry tune You Never Can Tell; Vincent made a horizontal V-sign with his index and middle fingers of both hands, and drew them across in front of his eyes, one hand at a time, with the eyes roughly between the fingers; they also performed versions of the Hitchhiker and the Swim
• afterwards in the Wallace home, while Vincent was in the bathroom (talking to himself about being loyal to his boss and not messing around with Mia), Mia was in the living room where she discovered his stash of heroin in his coat pocket. Mistaking it for cocaine, she snorted it and immediately overdosed. Vincent hurriedly drove her over to reluctant drug-dealing friend Lance's (Eric Stoltz) house for help, as he entreated: "Don't f--kin' die on me, Mia!"; Lance bluntly stated what needed to be done: "We're giving her a shot in the heart so I guess it's gotta be f--kin' exact." Vega demanded a "big fat magic marker" and drew a red target above Mia's heart, after the two had argued over who would administer the shot. Lance described the procedure: "It's gotta be hard enough to get through her breastplate into her heart." She was revived when Vega (on the count of three) directly shot her with adrenaline from a large hypodermic syringe plunged directly into her chest "in a stabbing motion." She woke with gasps and coughs, with the syringe stuck there and protruding from her heart.
• in an unforgettable speech (Butch's childhood flashback from 1973 in Tennessee), "special visitor" Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) talked to Butch Coolidge as a young child (Chandler Lindauer) about an important heirloom - a gold watch - that had been in the Coolidge family for three generations; for five years, Koons claimed he had been with Butch's father when he died in a Hanoi POW camp:
  • "This watch was on your daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew that if the gooks ever saw the watch, it'd be confiscated and taken away. The way your Dad looked at it, this watch was your birthright. He'd be damned if any slope's gonna put their greasy, yellow hands on his boy's birthright, so he hid it in one place he knew he could hide something - his ass. Five long years he wore this watch up his ass. Then, he died of dysentery. He give me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. Now, little man, I give the watch to you"
• by not taking a dive and throwing his last bout as expected, boxer Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) fought viciously and killed his opponent - then scammed Marsellus by betting on himself (and winning a fortune). His plan was to skip town with his French girlfriend, Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros), travel to his hometown of Knoxville, TN, and then leave the country with the money. Before leaving, he went to retrieve his cherished heirloom, a gold watch left behind in the bedroom of his apartment; he paused for a snack of toaster pastries from the kitchen cabinet; to his surprise, there was a small, compact submachine gun (with silencer) carelessly resting on the kitchen counter; Butch picked up the weapon, and then heard the nearby toilet flush; the bathroom door opened on a startled, unsuspecting Vincent (awaiting his arrival to execute him) - literally caught with his pants down - he was blown away (at the same time the tarts popped out of the toaster)
• after Butch encountered Marsellus outside, both were injured and retreated to a pawn shop, where two psychopathic hillbillies, shop owner Maynard (Duane Whitaker) and his security guard cousin Zed (Peter Greene), took them prisoner, and bound and gagged them in the basement. While Marsellus was being raped (sodomized) in the next room, Butch escaped and was about to flee, but with a change of heart, heroically saved and rescued Marsellus with a katana samurai sword; Maynard was disemboweled, and Zed was shotgunned in the groin by Marsellus before being tortured and executed with merciless "medieval" revenge; as they parted ways, Marsellus and Butch agreed to never speak again about the embarrassing incident or Butch's betrayal
• in an absurd scene, Vincent accidentally shot back-seat passenger, informant Marvin (Phil LaMarr), in the face at point-blank range; he had turned around, with his gun in his right hand and his mispointed gun fired accidentally; it was a sick, gruesomely funny, and blood-splattering back-seat death for Marvin; Vincent kept saying: "I didn't mean to shoot the son-of-a-bitch. The gun went off. I don't know why." Jules was worried they would be discovered by the police:
  • "Look at this f--kin' mess, man! We're on a city street in broad daylight here...We gotta get this car off the road. You know, cops seem to notice s--t like you're drivin' a car drenched in f--kin' blood."

• a "clean-up" specialist Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel) was called upon to deal with the immediate crisis at the home of Jules' friend Jimmie (director Quentin Tarantino)
• in the film's epilogue - Jules was eating breakfast in the Hawthorne Grill with partner Vincent, when he contemplated quitting the profession (during "a moment of clarity"); he was confronted by the two coffee-shop robbers, Honey Bunny and Ringo, from the film's pre-credits prologue stealing from the patrons; he held his gun on them, and reprised and reinterpreted his Biblical Ezekiel quote speech to "Ringo"; ultimately, to redeem himself, he decided to let the two go with 1,500ドル from his wallet (but not the briefcase), because he was in a "transitional period":
  • "But I saw some s--t this mornin' made me think twice. See, now I'm thinkin' maybe it means you're the evil man and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. 9-millimeter here, he's the shepherd protectin' my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now, I'd like that. But that s--t ain't the truth. The truth is, you're the weak and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd. Go"