Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s. Director and co-screenwriter
Quentin Tarantino synthesized such seemingly disparate traditions as the syncopated language of
David Mamet; the serious violence of American gangster movies, crime movies, and
films noirs mixed up with the wacky violence of cartoons, video games, and Japanese animation; and the fragmented story-telling structures of such experimental classics as
Citizen Kane,
Rashomon, and
La jetée. The Oscar-winning script by Tarantino and
Roger Avary intertwines three stories, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and
John Travolta, in the role that single-handedly reignited his career, as hit men who have philosophical interchanges on such topics as the French names for American fast food products;
Bruce Willis as a boxer out of a 1940s B-movie; and such other stalwarts as
Harvey Keitel,
Tim Roth,
Christopher Walken,
Eric Stoltz,
Ving Rhames, and
Uma Thurman, whose dance sequence with Travolta proved an instant classic. ~ Leo Charney, All Movie Guide