Pulp Fiction

Released: October 14, 1994

Studio: Miramax

Genre: crime drama

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 107.90 Worldwide: 213.90

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 226.70 Worldwide: 913.10

Directing: Quentin Tarantino

Screenwriting: Roger Avery, Quentin Tarantino

Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Ving Rames, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Harvey Keitel

Review:

Quentin Tarantino “made good on the promise of his 1992 debut (Reservoir Dogs) and crafted one of the most innovative crime dramas. Ever.” ^RS Pulp Fiction was “a stylish, immensely-popular, violent, off-beat, modern B-movie cult classic from writer/director Tarantino.” ^FS “Not since Orson Welles had a writer-director taken more joy in reinventing film form.” ^RS Tarantino “broke new ground with his non-linear,” ^A07 “audacious [and] outrageous look at honor among lowlifes.” ^LM

Tarantino’s “tale of violence, corruption and redemption” ^A07 garnered “career-best performances from John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman.” ^RS “In fact, there are no slackers in this cast.” ^LM

Vincent Vega (Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Jackson) are “magnetic” ^LM as “philosophically-talkative hit men” ^FS “who live by a strict moral code” ^A07 in “the seamy side of Los Angeles.” ^A98 They work for “vengeful, underworld boss Marsellus Wallace” ^FS (Rhames), who puts a hit out on Willis when the boxer double crosses him by failing to take dive. Thurman is the crime boss’s drug-overdosing wife, Roth and Plummer are a couple of small-time crooks who hold up a diner, and Keitel is The Wolf, a cleanup specialist.

“This voluble, violent, pumped-up movie isn’t for every taste – certainly not for the squeamish – but it’s got more vitality than almost any other film of 1994.” ^LM