Director
Quentin Tarantino

Actors
John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames, and Bruce Willis.

Famous Quote
“Say ‘what’ again. Say ‘what’ again, I dare you, I double dare you…” – Jules Winnfield

Review
The following review is the first installment of what will be an ongoing series in which I review the top five movies of all time, according to IMDb.com.

Pulp Fiction is the second film directed by Quentin Tarantino, and was released in 1994. In trademark Tarantino fashion the film is divided into distinct sections, and in these sections we follow different characters, finding out as we go along how they intertwine with each other. The characters that we follow over the course of the film include the two hitmen Jules Winnfield (Jackson) and Vincent Vega (Travolta), their mob boss Marsellus Wallace (Rhames), his wife Mia Wallace (Thurman), and Butch Coolidge (Willis), an aging boxer.

So what are my thoughts on the film? Well, plain and simply I love this movie. Whenever a storyteller can make you root for a character that you would normally find despicable, then you know they’re doing something right. For me I find that this is the case in a lot of Tarantino’s films, and Pulp Fiction is chief among them. In almost any other context I would have very little remorsefulness for the characters in this film, but Tarantino, through superb dialogue and unique storytelling, is able to make me invested and rooting for these characters. An example of this “superb” dialogue would be something like this; “Jules: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac? Vincent: Well, a Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac. Jules: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper? Vincent: I dunno, I didn’t go into Burger King”. Just to give some context, this dialogue comes towards the beginning of the film, and is used to develop the relationship between Jules and and Vincent. It instantly sets the dynamic between these two characters, and this dynamic stays with them over the course of the entire film.

Another reason why I enjoyed Pulp Fiction so much is because of the way its structured. It is structured in such a way so that you are introduced to the different characters in different parts of the film. Each one of these distinct parts of the film focuses on a few specific characters, and to make it even more interesting, these parts are not in chronological order. So while your watching the film, it’s important to keep an eye out for clues, for example; what clothes the characters are wearing, so you can better keep track of at what point in the story your in. Again I think this unique story structure is a great feature of the film, and can be incredibly rewarding for the viewer, if the viewer is able to piece together the different parts of the film into chronological order.

To wrap up this review, I think my final take on the film would be this; yes there are some weird moments in the movie, and as a viewer you should be aware of that and shouldn’t be surprised by it (I mean this is Tarantino after all). Outside of these few oddities however, I do believe that Pulp Fiction is deserving of its ranking as fifth best of all time, and is probably Tarantino’s finest work. I think that if you consider yourself a movie fan then Pulp Fiction is essential viewing, and because of that I would recommend that you all try to watch this movie at least once.