Pulp Fiction: Royale with Cheese!

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QT's glorious second directorial outing is unashamedly similar to his ultra violent debut in a variety of ways.

The coffee shop, single shot opening has returned, the oh-so stylish direction has remained oh-so stylish, the dialogue is as fresh and inspired as ever and the ultra violence and steady flow of cursing are both still going strong with a constant barrage of bullets and f-bombs being fired at each of the protagonists... and thank god for that! 

In between QT's opening two feature lengths he's lost none of his originality and spark, with his hilarious dialogue as sharp and fresh as ever, managing to draw yet more unbelievable performances out of the cast and giving me even more reason to start spouting phrases like "performance of a lifetime" all over the place, like a cliched water fountain gone mad.  The narrative is slightly less structured this time around and the plot isn't quite as intricate as before, that is to say there isn't a plot at all, simply a series of lovingly crafted, hilariously surreal chapters, similar, that's right you guessed it, to a pulp fiction novel.

The Crap in the coffee gag hadn't gone down well

The pacing similar to that of reservoir dogs constantly changes tempo, randomly going up and down, like an Alzheimer's patient on a stair lift. But again the lack of plot and pacing consistency doesn't seem to matter in any way. The scenes seamlessly transition between an evangelical, bible quoting hit man to a 70's dance montage, and then to a nail shreddingly tense adrenaline injection scene without even giving you cause or concern over how you got there.

Tarantino combines snappily edited, close up shot sequences with lengthy wide angle camera shots of the fronts of houses and derelict motels to great, varied effect.

The gloriously witty dialogue once again brings the characters and set pieces to life providing the viewer with actually sympathetic and vaguely likable protagonists as opposed to the group of psychotic bastards in Reservoir dogs who were a little harder to root for. 
Another nice touch is the interconnecting story lines between each of the protagonists, with many of the characters stumbling into each others stories and either having little or huge effect on the various chapters.
Each of the "colourful" and well rounded characters are stereotypical caricatures, from the rapist, gimp keeping hillbilly to the menacing king pin, Marseillus, spouting lines like, "If Butch goes to Indo-China I wanna n###er hiding in a bowl of rice ready to pop a cap in his ass." But it's also this abandonment of realism which makes every chapter and character so fun to watch.
The two foremost, show stealing protagonists, Vincent and Jules are played gloriously by John Travolta and Samuel Jackson, each acting as the central performance in  every one of the films most iconic and memorable scenes. 

They had finally found their hair stylist

Lets just say Travolta assassinates all my doubts about his acting talent and Jackson kidnaps my heart and holds it to ransom with his biblical anecdote... well...that was...weird.

But the bottom line is this is Reservoir Dogs with a bigger budget, bigger set pieces and a wider range of more famous actors.

It may not be quite as good a film as Reservoir dogs but it's easily more entertaining. Comparing the two is almost like trying to find a comparison between FHM and the lovely bones, I may enjoy FHM more but the latter is considered to be a slightly better piece of literature, or at least that's my opinion.

In short Pulp Fiction is an overwhelmingly entertaining if slightly empty, moral wise, hilarious and flawlessly acted movie  from one of the most iconic directors of the 90's.

9/10 stars freakin awesome, one of the least thought provoking yet most enjoyable films i've ever seen.
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