By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to Quentin Tarantino’s fast-talking, fast-shooting cult classic Pulp Fiction.
The Oscar buzz waaaaay back in 1994 centred solely around two films: Robert Zemeckis’ Forest Gump and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. On the night, the academy nodded towards Forest Gump, and ever since we’ve heard so-called critics (and hipsters) claiming a travesty and shouting that Tarantino’s gangster flick should have taken the top award. Utter crap.
Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s bloated sophomore effort, is an exercise in what happens when you put a film obsessive in charge of a production. Cliche after cliche after cliche. What Tarantino likes to pass off as homage is nothing more than plagiarism. What his fans tell you is originality and uniqueness is nothing more than a cheap re-hash of past gangster movies. Oh yes, of course we get the long, drawn-out dialogue reminding us that hitmen are “real people” too, but when did that become a good thing?
John Travolta, who plays hitman Vincent Vega, simply can’t appear on screen in anything without winding me up, and they wanted to give him an Oscar? It’s Danny Zuko, for crying out loud! His fat chipmunk grin and his camp (no, not cool…camp) dancing drive me crazy. Get on your big plane, take all your Scientology friends with you, and let’s see how far you can fly upwards before your engine freezes and you plummet back down to Earth. Harsh but fair.
Then there’s Samuel L. Jackson, playing fellow hitman Jules Winnfield, who stumbles his way through the film apparently more concerned with “being cool” than with accurately portraying his character. I don’t blame him though, and this was obviously the direction that fan-boy Tarantino wanted him to take.
Then there’s Willis, who admittedly is doing it tough right now…but we’re talking about Old Brucey boy back in the 1990s. Now, I’m sure that he knows that he’s not the best actor in the world, and I’ve never heard him claim that he is. In fact, in films with helicopter crashes and gun fights, Bruce is your man. Sit him down in front of a camera and ask him to act, however, and he’s way out of his comfort zone. For half an hour, I thought that he had cataracts, before I realised that his squinting was a way of coming across as thoughtful and brooding. Open your eyes and act, man!
Tarantino’s enthusiasm should in no way detach from the fact that he’s an ordinary filmmaker. For a more crafted approach to filmmaking, look no further than his 1994 rival, Robert Zemeckis, who actually directs the brilliant Forest Gump as a grown up. In the words of Forest Gump himself, “That’s all I have to say about that.”
For a far more positive reading of Pulp Fiction, check out Dana Polan’s book-length appraisal of the film as published by BFI Classics and Bloomsbury. Click here for more information.
