Movie Review: 'Pulp Fiction' (1994)

The most exhilarating movie in years. Writer-director Quentin Tarantino draws us into the lives of violently impassioned underworld characters who become figments of fury and grace and desire. The plot twists are like whims bubbling up from the filmmaker's unconscious; the dialogue is of such fiendishly elaborate wit it suggests a Martin Scorsese film written by Preston Sturges. The superb cast includes John Travolta as a hit man who has to chaperon his boss' party-girl wife (Uma Thurman); Bruce Willis as a palooka who wins the fight he's been ordered to lose; and — in the film's greatest performance — Samuel L. Jackson as Travolta's partner, who delivers hypnotic bebop soliloquies. Pulp Fiction is the work of a new-style punk virtuoso. The thrill — and originality — of the film is the way it shows us characters acting far better than we expected in situations more threatening than we could have imagined. A